A | B |
C | D |
E | F |
G | H |
I | J |
K | L |
M
N |
O | P |
Q | R |
S | T |
U | V |
W | X |
Y | Z
D
The fourth letter of the
Phoenician, the Hebrew, the Greek, the Roman, and of nearly all alphabets. In
Hebrew it is Daleth, signifying the door of life, a representation of which
was probably its original hieroglyph, as in the illustration. Here
1 shows the approximation to the Hebrew Daleth;
2 the Greek Delta, resembling the opening of a tent.
The numerical value of Daleth
is four; as a Roman numeral it stands for 500.
*
DA COSTA, HIPPOLYTO JOSEPH
A native of Colonia-do-Sacramento,
on the river La Plata. He was made a Freemason in Philadelphia in the United
States and afterward settled in Lisbon. He was subsequently persecuted by the
Inquisition, and was rescued only in time to save his life by the aid of
English Brethren who got him under the protection of the British flag. He then
passed over into England, where he lived for several years, becoming a zealous
Freemason and devoting himself to Masonic literature. In 1811, he published in
London a Narrative of his persecution in Lisbon, by the Inquisition, for the
pretended crime of Freemasonry, in two volumes. He wrote also a History of the
Dionysian Artificers, in which he attempts to connect Freemasonry with the
Dionysian and other mysteries of the ancients. He begins with the Eleusinian
mysteries, assuming that Dionysus, Bacchus, Adonis, Thammuz, and Apollo were
ail various names for the Sun, Whose apparent movements are represented by the
death and resurrection referred to in the ceremonies. But as the sun is
typified as being dead or hidden for three months under the horizon, he thinks
that the mysteries must have originated in a cold climate as far north as
latitude 66 , or among a people living near the polar circle. He therefore
attributes the invention of these mysteries to the ancient Scythians or
Massagetae, of whom he confesses that we know nothing. He afterward gives the
history of the Dionysiac or Orphic mysteries of El eusis, and draws a
successful parallel between the initiation into these and the Masonic
initiation. His disquisition's are marked by much learning, although his
reasoning may not always carry conviction.
*
DACTYLI
Priests of Cybele, in Phrygia,
of whom there were five, which number could not be exceeded, and alluded to
the salutation and blessing by the five fingers of the hand. The word is from
the Greek daktylos, meaning a finger.
*
DADUCHOS
A torch-bearer. The title given to an officer in the Eleusinian mysteries, who
bore a torch in commemoration of the torch lit by Ceres at the fire of Mount
Etna, and carried by her through the wood in her search for her daughter.
*
DAEDALUS
A famous artist and
mechanician, whose genealogy is traced in the Greek myths as having sprung
from the old Athenian race of kings, the Erechtheidae. He is said to have
executed the Cretan Labyrinth, the reservoir near Megaris in Sicily, the
Temple of Apollo at Capua, and the celebrated altar sculptured with lions on
the Libyan coast. He is said to be the inventor of a number of the working
Tools used in the various degrees of Freemasonry, the plumb-line and the ax,
most of the tools used in carpentry, and of glue. Of him is told the fable of
his flying safely over the Aegean by means of wings made by himself. His
nephew, Perdix, is the reputed inventor of the third Great Light in
Freemasonry, the Compasses, which are dedicated to the Craft. Through envy
Daedalus is said to have hurled his nephew, Perdix, from the Temple Athena.
*
DAGGER
In the advanced Degrees a
symbol of Masonic vengeance, or the punishment of crime (see Vengeance).
*
DAGRAIN, LOUIS
A miter in the Amsterdam
Journal of November 3, 1735, of an article on the subject of Freemasonry,
which caused an edict from the States General forbidding Masonic gatherings
throughout the country (see Thory, Acta Latomorum 11, 306).
*
DAGRAN, LOUIS
President of a General
Assembly of thirty Lodges, held on Saint John's Day, 1756, at the Hague, for
the formation of the Grand Lodge of Holland. It was at this December meeting
that Baron Van Aerssen Beyeren Van Hogerheide was appointed Grand Master (see
Thory, Acta Latomorum 1, 72).
*
DAIS
From the French word dais,
meaning a canopy. The raised floor at, the head of a banqueting room, or any
ceremonial chamber or hall, designed for guests of distinction ; so called
because it used to be decorated with a canopy. In Masonic language, the dais
is the elevated portion of the eastern part of the lodge-room, which is
occupied by Past Masters and the dignitaries of the Order. This should be
elevated three steps above the floor. This station of the Junior Warden is
raised one step, and that. of the Senior two.
*
DAKOTA
Saint .John's Lodge was the
first Lodge in Dakota. It received a Dispensation from the Grand Lodge of
Iowa, December 5, 1862, and a Charter on June 3, 1863. Representatives of this
Lodge and of Incense. Elk Point, Minnehaha, and Silver Star Lodges held a
Convention on June 21, 1875, to consider the formation of a Grand Lodge.
Members of Mount Zion Lodge,
U. D., were present but, owing to the fact that they had no Charter, did not
take part, in the proceedings. A Constitution was adopted and Grand Officers;
who were installed at another meeting on July 21, were elected. When in 1999
the territory of Dakota was divided by Act of Congress into North Dakota and
South Dakota the Grand Lodge of Dakota became the Grand Lodge of South Dakota
and certain Lodges in North Dakota were permitted to organize a Grand Lodge of
North Dakota.
The General Grand Chapter of
the United States chartered eight Chapters in Dakota, the first of which was
Yankton, No. 1, at. Yankton, chartered on August 24, 1885. On February. 25,
1885, the Grand Chapter was organized by the following Chapters: Yankton, No.
1; Sioux Falls, No. 2; Dakota, No. 3; Siroc, No. 4; Casselton, No. 7;
Cheyenne, No. 9, U. D. Huron, No. 10, U. D.; Keystone, No. 11, U. D.;
Watertown, No. 12, U. D.; Jamestown, No, 13, U. D.; Aberdeen, No. 14, U. D.
The first Annual Convocation was held June 8, 1885. When the division of the
Territory took place the Grand Chapter of Dakota gave permission to the Lodges
located in South Dakota to organize a Grand Chapter of South Dakota, under the
Constitution of the General Grand Chapter. This was done on January 6, 1890.
The Grand Chapter of North Dakota was organized three days later.
The first Council in Dakota,
Fargo, No.1, was chartered by the General Grand Council on November 19, 1889.
This Council was located in North Dakota and, therefore, after 1889, was
considered the first. Council of that State. There was no Grand Council in
Dakota until after the division of the Territory.
The Grand Commandery was
organized at Sioux Falls on May 14, 1884, by representant of the four
Commanderies. Dakota. No1; Cyrene, No. 2; De Molay; No. 3, and Fargo, No. 5.
On June 16, 1890 the representatives of Tancered. No 4: Fargo, No. 5; Grand
Forks, No. 8, and Wi-ha-ha, No . 12, organized the Grand Commandery of North
Dakota. The Grand Commandery of North Dakota. The Grand Commandery of Dakota
then changed its name to that of Grand Commandery of South Dakota.
A Consistory of the Ancient
and Accepted Scottish Rite was chartered at Fargo, on May 26, 1886, as Dakota,
No. 1; a Council of Kadosh, Fargo, No. 1, on December 8, 1883; a Chapter of
Rosy Croix, Mackey, No.1, on February 27, 1882, and a Lodge of Perfection,
Alpha, No. 1, on February 8, 1882.
*
DALCHO, FREDERICK
One of the founders of the
Supreme Council of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite for the Southern
Jurisdiction of the United States. He was born in the City of London in the
year 1770, of Prussian parents. His father had been a distinguished officer
under Frederick the Great and, having been severely wounded, was permitted to
retire to England for his health. He was a very earnest Freemason, and
transmitted his sentiments to his son. At his death, this son was sent for by
een uncle, who had a few years before emigrated to Baltimore. Here he obtained
a good classical education, after which he devoted himself successfully to the
study of medicine, including a more extensive course of botany than has been
common in medical course. Having received his degree of Doctor of Medicine, he
took a commission in the medical department of the American army. With his
division of the army he came to South Carolina, and was stationed at Fort
Johnson, in Charleston harbor. Here some diviculty arose between Doctor Dalcho
and his brother officers, in consequence of which he resigned his place in the
army in 1799. He then removed to Charleston, where he formed a partnership in
the practice of physic with Isaac Auld, and he became a member of the Medical
Society, and a trustee of the Botanic Garden, established through its
influence, On the 12th of June, 1818, Doctor Dalcho was admitted to the
priesthood of the Protestant Èpiscopal Church. On the 23d of February, he was
elected assistant minister of Saint Michael's Church, in Charleston. He died
on the 24d of November, 1836, in the sixty- seventh year of his age, and the
seventeenth of his ministry in Saint Michael's Church. The principal published
work of Doctor Dalcho is "An Historical Account of the Protestant Episcopal
Church in South Carolina. He also published a work entitled " The Evidence
from Prophecy for the Truth of Christianity and the Divining of Christ :
besides several sermons and essays, some of which were the result of
considerable labor and research. He was also the projector, and for a long
time the principal conductor, of the Gospel Messenger, then the leading organ
of the Episcopal Church in South Caroline.
The Masonic career of Doctor
Dalcho closely connects him with a York Freemasonry in South Carolina, and the
Scottish Rite throughout. the United States.
He was initiated in a York or
Athol Lodge at the time when the Jurisdiction of South Carolina was divided by
the existence and the dissension's of two Grand Lodges, the one deriving its
authority from the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of England, and the
other from the rival Atholl Grand Lodge.
His constant desire appears,
however, to have been to unit these discordant elements, and to uproot the
evil spirit of Masonic rivalry and contention which at that time prevailed -a
wish which was happily gratified, at length, by the union of the two Grand
Lodges of South Carolina in 1817, a consummation to which he himself greatly
contributed.
In 1801 Doctor Dalcho received
the Thirty.-third and ultimate Degree of Sovereign Grand Inspector of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite ; and May 31, 1801 he became instrumental
in the establishment at Charleston of the Supreme Council for the Southern
Jurisdiction of the United States, of which Body he was appointed Grand
Secretary, and afterward Grand commander; which latter position he occupied
until 1823, when he resigned. September 23, 1801, he delivered an oration
before the Sublime Grand Body in Charleston. This and another delivered March
21, 1803, before the same Body, accompanied by a learned historical appendix,
were published in the latter year under the general name of Dalcho's Orations.
The work was soon after republished in Dublin by the Grand Council of Heredom
or Prince Masons of that city; and McCosh says that there were other editions
issued in Europe, which, however, Brother Mackey had never seen.
The oration of 1803 and the
appendix furnish the best information that up to that day, and for many years
afterward. was accessible to the Craft in relation to the history of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite in this country.
In 1807. at the request of the
Grand Lodge of York Masons of South Carolina, he published an Ahiman Rezon,
which was adopted as the code for the government of the Lodges under the
jurisdiction of that Body. This work, as was to be expected from the character
of the Grand Lodge which it represented, was based on the previous book of
Laurence Dermott.
In 1808 he was elected
Corresponding Grand Secretary of the Grand Lodge of Ancient York Masons, and
from that time directed the influences of his high position to the
reconciliation of the Masonic difficulties in South Carolina.
In 1817 the Grand Lodge of
Free and Accepted Masons and that of Ancient York Masons of South Carolina
became united under the name of the Grand Lodge of Ancient Freemasons of South
Carolina. Doctor Dalcho took a very active part in this reunion, and at the
first annual communication he was elected Grand Chaplain. The duties of this
office he faithfully performed. and for many years delivered a public address
or sermon on the Festival of Saint John the Evangelist.
In 1822 he prepared a second edition of the Ahiman Rezon which was published
the following year, enriched with many notes. Some of these notes he would
have hardly written, with the enlarged experience of the present day; but on
the whole the second edition was an improvement on the first. Although
retaining the peculiar title which had been introduced by Dermott it ceased in
a great measure to follow the principles of the "'Ancient Masons."' In 1822
Dalcho became involved in an unpleasant controversy with some of his Masonic
associates, in consequence of difficulties and dissension's which at that time
existed in the Scottish Rite; and his feelings were so wounded by the un-masonic
spirit which seemed to actuate his antagonists and former friends, that he
resigned the office of Grand Chaplain, and retired for the remainder of his
life from all participation in the active duties of Freemasonry.
*
DALMATIC
A robe worn by deacons in some
Christian Churches. Originally made of linen, as shown by early Christian
paintings on the walls of the catacombs at Rome, but now generally made of
heavy woolen or silk material, as the planate or outer vestment worn by the
priest. This article of dress has become quite common in many of the Degrees
of various Rites.
*
DAMASCUS
An ancient and important city
of Syria, situated on the road between Babylon and Jerusalem, and said in
Masonic tradition to have been one of the resting-places of the Freemasons
who, under the proclamation of Cyrus, returned from the former to the latter
city to rebuild the Temple. An attempt was made in 1868 to introduce
Freemasonry into Damascus, and a petition, signed by fifteen applicants, for a
Charter for a Lodge was sent to the Grand Lodge of England; but the petition
was rejected on the ground that all the petitioners were members of Bodies
under other Grand Lodge Jurisdictions.
*
DAMBOOL
The vast rock temple of the
Buddhists in Ceylon, containing a profusion of carvings, figures of Buddha of
extraordinary magnitude. Monuments of this deity are, in the common Singhalese
term, called Dagoba, but the more general name is Stupa or Tope (see Topes).
*
DAME
In the York Roll No.4 and some
of the other old manuscripts, we find the direction to the Apprentice that he
shall not so act as to bring harm or shame, during his apprenticeship, "either
to his Master or Dame." It is absurd to suppose that this gives any color to
the theory that in the ancient Masonic gilds women were admitted. The word was
used in the same sense as it still is in the public schools of England, where
the old lady who keeps the house at which the pupils board and lodge, is
called the dame. The Companions de la Tour in France called her la mére, or
the mother. it must, however, be acknowledged, that women, under the title of
sisters were admitted as members. and given the freedom of the company, in the
old Livery Companies of London -a custom which Herbert ( History of the Livery
Companies i, 83) thinks was borrowed, on the reconstitution of the companies
by Edward III, from the religious gilds (see this subject discussed under the
tittle Sisters of the Gild).
*
DAMES OF MOUNT TABOR
An androgynous, both sexes,
Masonic Society, established about the year 1818, under the auspices of the
Grand Orient of France. Its design was to give charitable relief to destitute
females.
*
DAMES OF THE ORDER OF SAINT
JOHN
Religious ladies who, from its
first institution, had been admitted into the Fraternity of Knights
Hospitalers of Saint John of Jerusalem. The rules for their reception were
similar to those for the Knights, and the proofs of noble descent which were
required of them were sometimes more rigid. They had many conventual
establishments or asylums in France, Italy, and Spain.
*
DAMES PLEIADES
See Feuillants
*
DAMOISEL
A name sometimes given in the
times of chivalry to a page or candidate for knighthood, but also used mean a
young woman.
*
DAN
One of the twelve tribes of
Israel, whose blue banner, charged with an eagle, is borne by the Grand Master
of the First Veil in a Royal Arch Chapter.
*
DANGER
In all the old Constitutions
and Charges, Freemasons are taught to exercise brotherly love, and to deal
honestly and truly with each other, whence results the duty incumbent upon
every Freemason to warn his Brother of approaching danger. That this duty may
never be neglected, it is impressed upon every Master Mason by a significant
ceremony.
*
DANIEL
The old countersign with
"Darius" formerly used in the Thirty-second Degree, Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite. A Hebrew prophet, contemporary of Ezekiel, about 600 B.C.
Carried captive to Babylon in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, but selected for
instruction in all the learning of the Chaldeans by order of the Court. His
skill in the interpretation of dreams was famed. He became Governor of Babylon
under Nebuchadnezzar, and the first ruler of the whole Medo-Persian Empire,
inferior only to Darius, then the king. Under Cyrus he was Grand Master of the
Palace and Interpreter of Visions, as suggested by the Fifteenth Degree,
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
He did not return with his
countrymen to Judea when granted their liberty. It is a dispute as to when he
died, or where, but the majority favor Sushan, in Persia, when he was ninety
years of age. At the present day a tomb is shown in this ancient city bearing
his name; in fact, it is the only standing structure there. Daniel was noted
and famed for his piety, and as well for his worldly possessions.
*
DANNEBROG
The banner of Denmark
containing a white cross is founded upon the tradition, which reminds us of
that of Constantine, that Waldemar II, of Denmark, in 1219 saw in the heavens
a fiery cross, which betokened his victory over the Esthonians.
Brother Charles Schou, San
Carlos, Occidental Negros, Philippine Islands, writes that the Danish flag is
a white cross on a red field, the white cross dividing the background or field
of the flag into four red squares. He says further that " the origin of this
banner, or the legend of its origin as it was taught to me years ago when I
went to school. in Denmark is as follows: 'During the Esthonian battle in
1219, the Danish army was being hard pressed and it looked as if it would lose
the battle. Bishop Absolon who was with the Army, asked to be carried up on a
hill nearby and there he prayed for victory for the Danes. The Bishop was old,
he had just left his sickbed and he soon became exhausted and it was necessary
for the monks to hold up his arms while praying. Suddenly the heavens opened
up and a large red banner with a white cross was seen floating towards earth.
It was immediately caught and carried to the front of the Danish Army. The
sight of the cross inspired the Army with new courage and soon the Esthonians
were fleeing for their lives.'
*
DANTZIC
In the year 1768, on the 3d of
October, the burgomaster and magistrates of the city of Dantzic commenced a
persecution against Freemasonry, which Institution they charged with seeking
to undermine the foundations of Christianity; and to establish in its place
the religion of nature. Hence, they issued a decree forbidding every citizen,
inhabitant, and even stranger sojourning in the city, from any attempt to
reestablish the society of Freemasons, which was thenceforth to be regarded
"as forever abolished," under penalties of fine and imprisonment.
*
DAO
The Zen name for light, from
Daer, meaning to shine.
*
DARAKIEL
A responsive word in the
Twenty-third Degree of the Scottish Rite. sometimes pronounced dar-kee-ale.
The Latin expression is Directio Dei, meaning By direction of God.
*
DARIUS
The successor of Cyrus on the
throne of Persia, Babylon, and Medea. He pursued the friendly policy of his
predecessor in reference to the Jews, and confirmed the decrees of that
monarch by a new edict. In the second year of his reign, Haggai and Zechariah,
encouraged by this edict, induced their countrymen to resume the work of
restoring the Temple, which was finished four years afterward.
Darius is referred to in the
Degrees of Princes of Jerusalem, the Sixteenth of the Scottish Rite, and
Companion of the Red Cross in the American Rite.
*
DARKNESS
Darkness has, in all the
systems of initiation, been deemed a symbol of ignorance, and so opposed to
light, which is the symbol of knowledge.
Hence the rule, that the eye
should not see until the heart has conceived the true nature of those beauties
which constitute the mysteries of the Order. In the Ancient Mysteries, the
aspirant was always shrouded in darkness as a preparatory step to the
reception of the full light of knowledge. The time of this confinement in
darkness and solitude varied in the different mysteries. Among the Druids of
Britain the period was nine days and nights; in the Grecian Mysteries it was
three times nine days, while among the Persians, according to Porphyry, it was
extended to the almost incredible period of fifth, days of darkness, solitude,
and fasting. Because, according to all the cosmogonies, accounts of the
universe, darkness existed before light was created, darkness was originally
worshiped as the firstborn, as the progenitor of day and the state of
existence before creation. The apostrophe of Young to Night embodies the
feelings which gave origin to this debasing worship of darkness:
O majestic night!
Nature's great ancestor! Day's elder born!
And fated to survive the transient sun!
By morals and immortals seen with awe!
Freemasonry has restored
darkness to its proper place as a state of preparation; the symbol of that
antemundane chaos from whence light issued at the Divine command; of the state
of nonentity before birth, and of ignorance before the reception of knowledge.
Hence, in the Ancient Mysteries, the release of the aspirant from solitude and
darkness was called the act of regeneration, and he was said to be born again,
or to be raised from the dead. And in Freemasonry, the darkness which envelops
the mind of the uninitiated being removed by the bright effulgence of Masonic
light, Freemasons are appropriately called the sons of light. In Doctor
Oliver's Signs and Symbols there is a lecture "On the Mysterious Darkness of
the Third Degree.'' This refers to the ceremony of enveloping the room in
darkness when that Degree is conferred-a ceremony once always observed, but
now, in this country at least, frequently but improperly omitted. The darkness
here is a symbol of death, the lesson taught in the Degree, while the
subsequent renewal of light refers to that other and subsequent lesson of
eternal life.
*
DARMSTADT, GRAND LODGE OF
The Grand Lodge of Darmstadt,
in Germany, under the distinctive appellation of the Grand Lodge zur Eintracht
(meaning of Concord), was established on the 22d of March, 1846, by three
Lodges, in consequence of a dissension between them and the Eclectic Union.
The latter body had declared that the religion of Freemasonry was universal,
and that Jews could be admitted into the Order. Against this liberal
declaration a Lodge at Frankfort had protested, and had been erased from the
roll for contumacy. Two other Lodges, at Mainz and at Darmstadt, espoused its
cause, and united with it in forming a new Grand Lodge for Southern Germany,
founded on the dogma "that Christian principles formed the basis on which they
worked." It was, in fact, a dispute between tolerance and intolerance.
Nevertheless, the Body had the Grand Duke of Hesse as patron, and was
recognized by most of the Grand Lodges of Germany.
DASSIGNY, FIFIELD
A Freemason and physician of
Dublin, Ireland, who published, in 1744, at that city, A Serious and Impartial
Inquiry into the Cause of the present Decay of Freemasonry in the Kingdom of
Ireland. It contained an abstract of the history of Freemasonry, and an
allusion to the Royal Arch Degree, on account of which it has been cited by
Dermott in his Ahiman Rezon. The work is important on account of its reference
to Royal Arch Masonry, but is very scarce, only three copies of it being known
to exist, of which one belongs to the Grand Lodge of Iowa, and one to the West
Yorkshire Masonic Library, of which a facsimile was published in 1893, while a
third copy was discovered in 1896.
The writer's name is spelled
D'Assigny or Dassigny, but is given in the latter form on the title-page of
the Serious Enquiry. Dr. W. J. Chetwode Crawley has investigated the history
of the D'Assigny family (see Caelnentaria Hibernica. FascieulusII).
Both the spelling and the
pronunciation of this name have been matters of some inquiry. The name is
Dassigny on the title page of his famous Enquiry.
The Ahiman Rezon of Brother
Laurence Dermott, 1764 (page 47), gives the name as D'Assigny. Kenning's
Cyclopedia of Freemasonry spells the name Assigny and says of this spelling "
generally so spelt, but his real name seems to have been Dassigny," though
Brother Woodford (page 148) spells it D'Assigny, a choice of three ways. As
for the sounds in the name the following is suggested as representative of
common usage: Das, as in pass or class; sig, as in see or key, and ny, as in
penny or many. Doctor E. B. de Sauzé prefers the following from a French point
of view: Da, as the first a in lateral; ssi, as ci in city; gn, as in signor
with the Spanish ñ, and y, as the French i. He also feels certain that the
original spelling of the name was D'Assigny.
*
DATES, MASONIC
See Calendar
*
DATHAN
A Reubenite who, with Korah
and Abiram, revolted against Moses and unlawfully sought the priesthood. In
the first chapter of the Book of Numbers, where the whole account is given, it
is said that as a punishment the earth opened and swallowed them up. The
incident is referred to in the Order of High Priesthood, an honorary Degree of
the . American Rite, which is conferred upon the installed High Priests of
Royal Arch Chapters.
*
DAUGHTER, MASON'S
See Mason's Wife and Daughter
*
DAUGHTER OF A FREEMASON
The daughter of a Freemason is
entitled to certain peculiar privileges and claims upon the Fraternity arising
from her relationship to a member of the Craft. There has been some difference
of opinion as to the time and manner in which the privileges cease. Masonic
jurists, however, very generally incline to the opinion that they are
terminated by marriage. If a Freemason's daughter marries a profane, she
absolves her connection with the Fraternity. If she marries a Freemason, she
exchanges her relation of a Freemason's daughter for that of a Freemason's
wife.
*
DAVID
David has no place in Masonic
history, except that which arises from the fact that he was the father of King
Solomon, and his predecessor on the throne of Israel. To him, however, were
the Jews indebted for the design of a Temple in Jerusalem, the building of
which was a favorite object with him. For this purpose he purchased Mount
Moriah, which had been the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite; but David had
been engaged in so many wars, that it did not seem good to the Lord that he
should be permitted to construct so sacred an edifice. This duty, therefore,
he left to his son, whom, before dying, he furnished with plans and with means
to accomplish the task. Though David is a favorite subject among the
Cabalistic and the Mohammedans, who relate many curious traditions concerning
him, he is not alluded to in the legends or symbolism of Freemasonry except
incidentally as the father of Solomon.
*
DAVID I, KING OF SCOTLAND
1124--53; known as Protector
of Freemasons and Patron of the building art (see Alexander lll).
*
DAVID, SHIELD OF
See Shield of David
*
DAZARD, MICHEL FRANÇOIS
Born at Chateaudun, in France,
May 2, 1781. He was a devoted student of Freemasonry, and much occupied in the
investigation of the advanced Degrees of ail the Rites.
He was an opponent of the
Supreme Council, against which body he wrote, in 1812, a brochure in French of
forty-eight pages entitled Eztrait des colonnes gravées du Père de Famille,
vallée d'Angers ( meaning Extract from the Graven Columns of the Father of the
Family, Valley of Angers). Kloss calls it an important and exhaustive polemic
document. It attempts to expose, supported by documents, what the author and
his party called the illegal pretensions of the Supreme Council, and the
arrogance of its claim to exclusive Jurisdiction in France. Dazard was the
author of several other interesting discourses on Masonic subjects.
*
DEACON
In every Symbolic Lodge, there
are two officers who are called the Senior and Junior Deacons. In America the
former has been appointed by the Master and the latter by the Senior Warden,
both have been elected according to the respective Codes of the Jurisdictions,
Pennsylvania, for example, has the Deacons appointed, Ohio has them elected;
in England both are appointed by the Master. It is to the Deacons that the
introduction of visitors should be properly entrusted. Their duties
comprehend, also, a general surveillance over the security of the Lodge, and
they are the proxies of the officers by whom they are appointed Hence their
jewel, in allusion to the necessity of circumspection and justice is a square
and compasses. In the center, the Senior Deacon wears a sun, and the Junior
Deacon a moon, which serve to distinguish their respective ranks. In the
English system, the jewel of the Deacons is a dove, in allusion to the dove
sent forth by Noah. In the Rite of Mizraim the Deacons are called acolytes.
The office off Deacons in
Freemasonry appears to have been derived from the usage's of the primitive
church. In the Greek church, the Deacons were always the wvxwpoí, the pylori
or doorkeepers, and in the Apostolica Constitutions the Deacon was ordered to
stand at the men's door, and the Subdeacon at the women's, to see that none
came in or went out during the oblation In the earliest rituals of the
eighteenth century, there is no mention of' Deacons, and the duties of those
officers were discharged partly by the Junior Warden and partly by the Senior
and Junior Entered Apprentices, and they were not generally adopted in England
until the Union of 1813. Brother W,J. Chetwode Crawley has some comments upon
the subject in Caementaria Hibernica (Fasciculus i, pages 9-10). He advises
that:
"We must carefully distinguish
between the Deacon of the early Scottish Minute Books, and the Deacon of Irish
ritual. The former occupied almost, if not altogether, the highest post among
his Brethren, and having precedence over the Warden and presiding over the
meeting when occasion required. The latter corresponded to the Dean-that is
Deacon-of Faculty ; the latter to the lost order of the Ministry, the Deacon
in Ecclesiastical parlance. The similarity does not go beyond the name.
The appointing of Deacons
served in latter days, as a distinction between Irish and English work, for
the Lodges under the Constitution of the Ancient naturally followed the Irish
use. It must be observed that the office of Deacon was confined to supporting
Lodges. During the first one hundred and twenty years of its existence, the
Grand Lodge of Ireland never elected Grand Deacons . when their services were
required they were selected for the occasion from the Masters then present.
Their first appearance as prominent Grand Officers is in the addition of the
Irish Constitutions, promulgated in 1850, though thirty-seven years previously
the United Grand Lodge of England had adopted the office, in deference to the
usage of the Ancient. (See also references under Titles.)
*
DEACON'S ROD
See Rod, Deacon's
*
DEAF AND DUMB
Deaf mutes, as imperfect men,
come under the provisions of the Old Constitutions, and are disqualified for
initiation. At one time, however, a Lodge in Paris, captivated by the eclat of
the proceeding, and unmindful of the ancient landmark, initiated a deaf mute,
who was an intelligent professor in the Deal and Dumb Asylum. All the
instructions were given through the medium of the language of the deaf mutes.
lt. scarcely need be said that this cannot be recognized as a precedent.
*
DEATH
The Scandinavians, in their
Edda, describing the residence of Death in Hell, where she was east by her
father, Loke, say that she there possesses large apartments, strongly built,
and fenced with gates of iron. Her hall is Grief; her table, Famine Hunger,
her knife; Delay, her servant; Faintness, her porch; Sickness and Pain, her
bed ; and her tent, Cursing and Howling. But. the Masonic idea of death, like
the Christian's, is accompanied with no gloom, because it is represented only
as a sleep, from whence we awaken into another life. Among the ancients, sleep
and death were fabled as twins. Old Gorgias, when dying, said, "Sleep is about
to deliver me up to his brother''; but the death sleep of the heathen was a
sleep from which there was no awaking. The popular belief was annihilation,
and the poets and philosophers fostered the people's ignorance, by describing
death as the total and irremediable extinction of live. Thus Seneca says-and
he was too philosophic not to have known better-''that after death there comes
nothing,'' while Vergil, who doubtless had been initiated into the Mysteries
of Eleusis, nevertheless calls death "an iron sleep, an eternal night," yet
the Ancient Mysteries were based upon the dogma of eternal live, and their
initiations were intended to represent a resurrection. Freemasonry, deriving
its system of symbolic teachings from these ancient religious associations,
presents death to its neophytes as the gate or entrance to eternal existence.
To teach the doctrine of immortality is the great object of the Third Degree.
In its ceremonies we learn that live here is the time of labor, and that,
working at the construction of a spiritual temple, we are worshiping the Grand
Architect for whom we build that temple. 'But we learn also that, when that
live is ended, it closes only to open upon a newer and higher one, where in a
second temple and a purer Lodge, the Freemason will find eternal truth. Death,
therefore, in Masonic philosophy, is the symbol of initiation completed,
perfected, and consummated.
*
DEATH IN THE ANCIENT MYSTERIES
Each of the ancient religious
Mysteries, those quasi-Masonic associations of the heathen world, was
accompanied by a legend, which was always of a funereal character representing
the death, by violence, of the deity to whom it was dedicated, and his
subsequent resurrection or restoration to life. Hence, the first part of the
ceremonies of initiation was solemn and lugubrious in character, ,while the
latter part was cheerful and joyous. These ceremonies and this legend were
altogether symbolical, and the great truths of the unity of God and the
immortality, of the soul were by them intended to be dramatically explained.
This representation of death,
which finds its analogue in the Third Degree of Freemasonry, has been
technically called the Death of the Mysteries. It is sometimes more precisely
defined, in reference to any special one of the Mysteries, as the Cabiric
death or the Bacchic death, as indicating the death represented in the
Mysteries of the Cabiri or of Dionysus.
*
DEBATE
Debates in a Masonic Lodge
must be conducted according to the fraternal principles of the Institution.
Masonic debate or discussion should not become wrangling disputes nor
quarrelsome contention. in the language of Doctor Oliver, ''the strictest
courtesy should be observed during a debate, in a Mason's Lodge, on questions
which elicit a. difference of opinion; and any gross violation of decorum and
good order is sure to be met by an admonition from the chair." It must be
always remembered that the object of a Masonic: discussion is to elicit truth,
and not simply to secure ,victory. When, in a debate, a Brother desires to
speak, he rises and addresses the chair. The presiding officer calls him by'
his name, and thus recognizes his right to the floor. while he is speaking, he
is not to be interrupted by any other member, except on a point of order. If
called to order by any member, the speaker is immediately to take his seat
until the point is stated, when the Master will make his decision without
debate. The speaker will then rise and resume his discourse, if not ruled out
by the Master. During the time that he is speaking, no motion is permissible.
Every member is permitted to speak once on the subject under discussion ; nor
can he speak a second time, except by permission of the Master, unless there
is a more liberal provision in the by-laws of the Lodge. There are to this
rule two exceptions, namely, when a member rises to explain.
and when the mover of the
resolution closes the debate by a second speech to which he is entitled by
parliamentary law.
*
DECALOGUE
The ten commandments of the
Masonic law, as delivered from Mount Sinai and recorded in the twentieth
chapter of Exodus, are so called. They are not obligatory upon a Freemason as
a Freemason, because the Institution is tolerant and cosmopolite, and cannot
require its members to give their adhesion to any, religious dogmas or
precepts, excepting those which express a belief in the existence of God, and
the immortality of the soul. No partial law prescribed for a particular
religion can be properly selected for the government of an Institution whose
great characteristic is its universality (see Moral Law).
*
DECANUS
An officer in the Knights
Templar system of Baron Hund, who, in the absence of the Grand Master and his
Prior, possessed the right to preside in the Chapter.
*
DECATUR, STEPHEN
There Were two of this name,
father and son. 0ne, born at Newport, Rhode Island, exact date unknown, died
in 1808, at Philadelphia. Captain in the United States Navy from its birth,
Brother Decatur was in charge of the Delaware, sloop of war, and later on
commanded the Philadelphia, until the close of the differences with France. He
moved from Philadelphia to Sinnepuxent, Maryland, and there, January 5, 1779,
his son, Stephen Decatur II, was born. In August, 1777, Brother Decatur, the
father, was initiated in Lodge No. 16, at Baltimore, and later in the same
year received the Second and Third Degrees. Baltimore Lodge No. 16 was
chartered by the Provincial Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania in 1770. In 1781 its
Charter was forfeited but was restored in 1785 as Saint, Johns Lodge No. 20,
Fells Point, Baltimore, and which later went out of existence. Grand Secretary
John A. Perry, Pennsylvania, writes to us that on "revering to the Minute Book
of Lodge No. 3, I find the signature of Stephen Decatur of the outside leaf.
The minutes show:
Stated Lodge opened in due
form April 18, 1780.
Brother Decatur of Lodge No.
16 in Maryland petitioned to become a member of this Lodge, was balloted or
and unanimously approved of.
Lodge closed and a Master's
Lodge opened.
Brothers Jackway and Decatur
were raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason, returned and gave thanks.
Brother Decatur paid his fees $100.00 in the hands of the Treasurer.
" He no doubt previously
received the Entered Apprentice Degree in Lodge No. 16, Baltimore, Maryland,
whose Warrant was granted by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, September 21,
1779, but was not in existence very long." The claim is made but not fully
proven that the younger Stephen Decatur was initiated in Saint Johns Lodge,
either of Maryland or Rhode Island, October 12, 1799. He became a naval
commander of prominence and met with great success in various enterprises (see
History of Freemasonry in Maryland , E.T. Schultz volume 1, pages 60, 102;
also Builder, George W. Baird, May, 1920).
*
DECIUS
The nom de plume, meaning in
French the pen name, of C. L. Reinhold, a distinguished Masonic writer ( (see
Reinhold).
*
DECLARATION OF CANDIDATES
Every candidate for initiation
is required to make. "upon honor," the following declaration before an
appropriate officer or committee.
That unbiased by the improper
solicitation of friends, and uninfluenced by mercenary motives, he freely and
voluntary offers himself as a candidate for the Mysteries Freemasonry: that he
is prompted to solicit the privileges of Freemasonry by a favorable option
conceived of the constitution and a desire of knowledge; and that he will
cheerfully conform to all the ancient usage's and established customs of the
Fraternity.
This form is very old. It is
to be found in precisely the same words in the earliest edition of Preston. It
is required by the English Constitution, that the candidate should subscribe
his name to this declaration, But in America the declaration is made oral;,
and usually before the Senior Deacon or the Stewards.
*
DECLARATION OF THE MASTER
Every Master of a Lodge, after
his election and before his installation, is required to give, in the presence
of the Brethren, his assent to the following fifteen charges and regulations:
1. Do you promise to be a good
man and true, and strictly to obey the moral law?
2. Do you promise to be a peaceable citizen, and cheerfully to conform to the
laws of the country in which you reside?
3. Do you promise not to be concerned in plots and conspiracies against the
government of the country in which you live, but patiently to submit to the
decisions of the law and the constituted authorities?
4. Do you promise to pay proper respect to the civil magistrates, to work
diligently , live creditably, and act honorably by all men?
5. Do you promise to hold in veneration the original rulers and patrons of'
the Order of Freemasonry, and their regular successors, supreme and
subordinate, according to their station ; and to submit to the awards and
resolutions of your Brethren in Lodge convent , in every case consistent with
the constitutions of the Order?
6. Do you promise, as much as in you lies, to avoid private piques and
quarrels, and to guard against intemperance and excess.
7. Do you promise to be cautions in your behavior, courteous to your Brethren,
and faithful to your Lodge?
8. Do you promise to respect genuine and true Brethren, and to discountenance
impostors and all dissenters from the Ancient Landmarks and Constitutions of
Masonry?
9. Do you promise, according to the best of your abilities to promote the
general good of society, to cultivate the social virtues, and to propagate the
knowledge of the mystic art, according to our statutes?
10. Do you promise to pay homage to the Grand Master for the time being, and
to his officers when duly installed, and strictly to conform to every edict of
the Grand Lodge or General Assembly of Masons that is not subversive of the
principles and groundwork of Masonry'?
11. Do you admit that it is not in the power of any man or body of men, to
make innovations in the Body of Masonry?
12. Do you promise a regular attendance on the committees and communications
of the Grand Lodge, on receiving proper notice, and to pay attention to all
the duties of Masonry , on convenient occasions?
13. Do you admit that no new Lodge can be formed without permission of the
Grand Lodge; and that no countenance ought to be given to any irregular Lodge,
or to any person clandestinely initiated therein, as being contrary to the
ancient churches of the Order?
14. Do you admit that no person can be regularly made a Freemason in, or
admitted a member of, any regular Lodge, without precious notice, and due
inquirer into his characters
l5. Do you agree that no visitors shall be received into your lodge without
due examination and producing proper vouchers of their having been initiated
in a regular Lodge? With very slight differences, such as might properly be
called editorial variations, these charges and regulations are generally in
use.
*
DECLARING OFF
When a brother ceases to visit
and pay his monthly subscription, he thereby declares himself off the Lodge"
(see the Symbolical Dictionary). In England, the Brother resigns. Various
designations rule in the United States, the chief one being dropped from the
roll. In some States the Brother is punished by suspension. If, however, in
certain States, he is clear of the books, upon application he can receive a
certificate to that effect, and be dropped from the roll. In England he gets a
clearance certificate. in Scotland a demit is issued by the Daughter Lodge and
countersigned by the Grand Secretary.
*
DECORATIONS
A Lodge-room ought, besides
its necessary furniture, to be ornamented with decorations which, while they
adorn and beautify it, will not be unsuitable to its sacred character. On this
subject, Doctor Oliver (in his Book of the Lodge, chapter v, page 70) makes
the following judicious remarks: The expert Mason will be convinced that the
walls of a Lodge room ought neither to be absolutely naked nor too much
decorated. A chaste disposal of symbolical ornaments in the right places, and
according to propriety, relieves the dullness and vacuity of a blank space
and, though but sparingly used, will produce a striking impression and
contribute to the general beauty and solemnity of the scene.
*
DEDICATION OF A LODGE
Among the ancients every
temple, altar, statue, or sacred place was dedicated to some divinity. The
Romans, during the Republic, confided this duty to their consuls, pretors,
censors, or other chief magistrates, and afterward to the emperors. According
to the Papirian law, the regulations of a clan or group of Roman families, the
dedication must have been authorized by a decree of the senate and the people,
and the consent of the college of augurs. The ceremony consisted in
surrounding the temple or object of dedication with garlands of flowers,
whilst the vestal virgins poured on the exterior of the temple the lustral
water. The dedication was completed by a formula of words uttered by the
Pontiff, and the immolation of a victim, whose entrails were placed upon an
altar of turf. The dedication of a temple was always a festival for the
people, and was annually commemorated.
While the Pagans dedicated
their temples to different deities—sometimes to the joint worship of several
—the monotheistic Jews dedicated their religious edifices to the one supreme
Jehovah. Thus, David dedicated with solemn ceremonies the altar which he
erected on the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite, after the cessation of
the plague which had afflicted his people; and Calmet conjectures that he
composed the thirtieth Psalm on this occasion. The Jews extended this ceremony
of dedication even to their private houses, and Clarke tells us, in reference
to a passage on this subject in be Book of Deuteronomy, house to God with
prayer, praise, and thanksgiving; and this was done in order to secure the
divine presence and blessing, for no pious or sensible man could imagine he
could dwell safely in a house that was not under the immediate protection of
God."
There is a noteworthy
reproduction in the Symbolism of the Churches and Church Ornaments, a
translation of the first book of the Rationale Divinorum Officorum written by
William Durandus in the thirteenth century. Here we have the ritual of an
ancient form of dedication. There is also quoted a brief but suggestive
passage from Sugerius book on the dedication of the Church of St. Denis:
Right early in the morning,
archbishops and bishops archdeacons and abbots, and other venerable persons
who had lived of their proper expense, bore themselves right bishop fully and
took their places on the platform raised for the consecration of the water,
and placed between the sepulchers of the holy martyrs and S (the holy)
Saviour's altar. Then might ye have seen and they who stood by saw, and that
with great devotion, such a band of so venerable bishops, arrayed in their
white robes, sparkling in their pontifical robes and precious orfreys, grasp
their pastoral staves, call on God in holy exorcism pace around the
consecrated enclosure, and perform the nuptials of the Great King with such
care that it seemed as though the ceremony were performed by a chorus of
angels not a band of men. The crowd, in overwhelming magnitude, rolled around
to the door, and while the aforesaid Episcopal band were sprinkling the walls
with hyssop, the king and his nobles drive them back, repress them, guard the
portals.
Suger, or Sugerius, as the
name is often Latinized, was born about 1081 A.D. and died on January 31,
1151. A Frenchman who has been deemed the foremost historian of his time, he
was in his tenth year at school in the Priory of St. Denis near Paris. Later
he became secretary to the Abbot of St. Denis, and after a sojourn at Rome
succeeded to this office. At his death the Abbey possessed considerable
property, including a new church of which he had written much, including the
above item of interest in regard to the old ceremony of dedication.
According to the learned
Selden, there was a distinction among the Jews between consecration and
dedication, for sacred things were both consecrated and dedicated, while
profane things, such as private dwelling-houses, were only dedicated.
Dedication was, therefore, a less sacred ceremony than consecration. This
distinction has also been preserved among Christians, many of whom, and, in
the early ages, all, consecrated their churches to the worship of God, but
dedicated them to, or placed them under, the especial patronage of some
particular saint. A similar practice prevails in the Masonic Institution; and
therefore, while we consecrate our Lodges "to the honor of God's glory," we
dedicate them to the patrons of our Order.
Tradition informs us that
Masonic Lodges were originally dedicated to King Solomon, because he was our
first Most Excellent Grand Master. In the sixteenth century Saint John the
Baptist seems to have been considered as the peculiar patron of Freemasonry;
but subsequently this honor was divided between the two Saints John, the
Baptist and the Evangelist; and modern Lodges, in the United States at least,
are universally erected or consecrated to God, and dedicated to the Holy
Saints John. In the Hemming lectures, adopted in 1813, at the time of the
union of the two Grand Lodges of England, the dedication was changed from the
Saints John to King Solomon, and this usage now prevails very generally in
England where Lodges are dedicated to "God and His Service, also to the memory
of the Royal Solomon, under chose auspices many of our Masonic mysteries had
weir origin"; but the ancient dedication to the Saints John was never
abandoned by American Lodges.
The formula in Webb which
dedicates the Lodge to the memory of the Holy Saint John," was, undoubtedly,
an inadvertence on the part of that lecturer, since in all his oral teachings
Brother Mackey asserts he adhered to the more general system, and described a
Lodge in his esoteric work as being "dedicated to the Holy Saints John." This
is now the universal practice, and the language used by Webb becomes
contradictory and absurd when compared with the fact that the festivals of
both saints are equally celebrated by the Order, and that the 27th of December
is not less a day of observance in the Order than the 24th of June.
In one old lecture of the
eighteenth century, this dedication to the two Saints John is thus explained:
Q. Our Lodges being finished,
furnished, and decorated with ornaments, furniture, and jewels, to whom were
they consecrated?
A. To God.
Q. Thank you, Brother; and can you tell me to whom they were first dedicated?
A. To Noah, who was saved in the Ark.
Q. And by what name were the Masons then known?
A. They were called Noachidæ, Sasses, or Wise Men.
Q. To whom were the Lodges dedicated during the Mosaic Dispensation?
A. To Moses! the chosen of God, and Solomon, the an of David, king of Israel,
who was an eminent patron of the Craft.
Q. And under what name were the Masons known during that period?
A. Under the name of Dionysias, Geometricians, or Masters in Israel.
Q. But as Solomon was a Jest, and died long before the promulgation of
Christianity. to whom were they dedicated under the Christian Dispensation?
A. From Solomon the patronage of Masonry passed to Saint John the Baptist.
Q. And under what name were they known after the promulgation of Christianity?
A. Under the name of Essenes, Archaics, or Freeze masons.
Q. Why were the Lodges dedicated to Saint John the Baptists
A. Because he was the forerunner of our Savior, and, by preaching repentance
and humiliation, drew the first parallel of the Gospel.
Q. Had Saint John the Baptist any equal?
A. He had; Saint John the Evangelist.
Q. Why is he said to be equal to the Baptist?
A. Because he finished by his learning what the other began by his zeal, and
thus drew a second line parallel to the former- ever since which time
Freemasons' Lodges in all Christian countries, have been dedicated to the one
or the other, or both, of these worthy and worshipful men.
here is another old lecture, adopted into the Prestonian system, which still
further developed
these reasons for the Johannite dedication, but with bight variations in some
of the details. Brother
Mackey quotes it thus:
From the building of the first Temple at Jerusalem to the Babylonish
captivity, Freemasons' Lodges were dedicated to King Solomon; from thence to
the coming of the Messiah, they were dedicated to Zerubbabel, the builder of
the second Temple, and from that time to the final destruction of the Temple
by Titus, in the reign of Vespasian, they were dedicated to Saint John the
Baptist; but owing to the many massacres and disorders which attended that
memorable event, Freemasonry sunk very much into decay; many Lodges were
entirely broken up, and but few could meet in sufficient numbers to constitute
their legality; and at a general meeting of the Craft, held in the city of
Benjamin, it was observed that the principal reason for the decline of Masonry
was the want of a Grand Master to patronize it. They therefore deputed seven
of their most eminent members to wait upon St. John the Evangelist, who was at
that time Bishop of Ephesus, requesting him to take the office of Grand
Master. He returned for answer, that though well stricken in years, being
upwards of ninety, yet having been initiated into Masonry in the early part of
his life, he would take upon himself the office. He thereby completed by his
learning what the other Saint John effected by his zeal, and thus drew what
Freemasons term a sine parallels ever since which time Freemasons Lodges in
all Christian countries have been dedicated both to Saint John the Baptist and
Saint John the Evangelist.
So runs the tradition, but, as
it lacks every claim to authenticity, a more philosophical reason may be
assigned for this dedication to the two Saints John.
One of the earliest deviations
from the pure religion of the Noachidae was distinguished by the introduction
of sun worship. The sun, in the Egyptian mysteries, was symbolized by Osiris,
the principal object of their rites, whose name, according to Plutarch and
Macrobius, signified the prince and leader, the soul of the universe and the
governor of the stars. Macrobius (Saturnalia, Book 1, chapter 18) says that
the Egyptians worshiped the sun as the only divinity; and they represented him
under various forms, according to the several phases, of his infancy at the
winter solstice in December, his adolescence at the vernal equinox in March,
his manhood at the summer solstice in June, and his old age at the autumnal
equinox in September.
Among the Phoenicians, the sun
was adored under the name of Adonis, and in Persia, under that of Mithras. In
the Grecian mysteries, the orb of day was represented by one of the officers
who superintended the ceremony of initiation; and in the Druidical rites his
worship was introduced as the visible representative of the invisible,
creative, and preservative principle of nature. In short, wherever the
spurious Freemasonry existed, the adoration of, or, at least, a high respect
for, the solar orb constituted a part of its system.
In Freemasonry, the sun is
still retained as an important symbol. This fact must be familiar to every
Freemason of any intelligence. It occupies, indeed, its appropriate position,
simply as a symbol, but, nevertheless, it constitutes an essential part of the
system. "As an emblem of God's power," says Hutchinson (Spirit of Masonry,
Lecture IV, page 86), "His goodness, omnipresence, and eternity, the Lodge is
adorned with the image of the sun, which he ordained to arise from the east
and open the day; thereby calling forth the people of the earth to their
worship and exercise in the walks of virtue."
"The government of a Mason's
Lodge," says Oliver (Signs and Symbols of Freemasonry, pages 204), "is vested
in three superior officers, who are seated in the East, West, and South, to
represent the rising, setting, and meridian sun."
The sun, obedient to the
all-seeing eye, is an emblem in the ritual of the Third Degree, and the sun
displayed within an extended compass constitutes the jewel of the Past Master
in the American system, and that of the Grand Master in the English.
But it is a needless task to
cite authorities or multiply instances to prove how intimately the sun, as a
symbol, is connected with the whole system of freemasonry.
It is then evident that the
sun, either as an object of worship, or of symbolization, has always formed an
important part of what has been called the two systems of Freemasonry, the
Spurious and the Pure.
To the ancient sun worshipers,
the movements of the heavenly bodies must have been something more than mere
astronomical phenomena; they were the actions of the deities whom they adored,
and hence were invested with the solemnity of a religious character. But,
above allay the particular periods when the sun reached his greatest northern
and southern declination, at the winter and summer solstices, by entering the
zodiacal signs of Cancer and Capricorn, marked as they would be by the most
evident effects on the seasons, and on the length of the days and nights,
could not have passed unobserved. hut, on the contrary, must have occupied an
important place in their ritual Now these important days fall respectively on
the 21st of June and the 21st of December.
Hence, these solstitial
periods were among the principal festivals observed by the Pagan nations. Du
Pauw (Dissertations on Egyptians and Chinese in, page 159) remarks of the
Egyptians, that "they had a fixed festival at each new moon; one at the
summer, and one at the winter solstice, as well as the vernal and autumnal
equinoxes "
The Druids always observed the
festivals of midsummer and midwinter in June and December The former for a
long time was celebrated by the Christian descendants of the Druids "The eve
of Saint John the Baptist," says Chambers (information for the recopies Nose
89), "variously called Midsummer Eve, was formerly a time of high observance
amongst the English, as it still is in Catholic countries. Bonfires were
everywhere lighted, round which the people danced with joyful demonstrations,
occasionally leaping through the flame.''
Godfrey Higgins (Celtic
Druids, page 165) thus alludes to the celebration of the festival of midwinter
he the ancient world:
The festival of the 25th of
December was celebrated, by the Druids in Britain and Ireland, with great
fires lighted on the tops of the hills. On the 25th of December, at the first
moment of the day, throughout all the ancient world, the birthday of the god
Sol was celebrated. This was the moment when, after the supposed winter
solstice and the lowest point of his degradation below our hemisphere he began
to increase and gradually to ascend. At this moment. in all the ancient
religions, his birthday was kept; from India to the Ultima Thule. these
ceremonies partook of the same character: everywhere the god was feigned to he
born, and his festival was celebrated with great rejoicings.
See, also, Dudley Writrht's
Druidism, the Ancient Faith of Britain (page 24).
Our ancestors finding that the Church, according to its usage of purifying
Pagan festivals by Christian application, had appropriated two days near those
solstitial periods to the memory of two eminent saints, incorporated these
festivals by the lapse of a few days into the Masonic calendar, and adopted
these worthies as patrons of our Order. To this change, the earlier Christian
Freemasons were the more persuaded by the peculiar character of these saints.
Saint John the Baptist, by announcing the approach of Christ, and by the
mystic ablution to which he subjected his proselytes, and which was afterward
adopted in the ceremony of initiation into Christianity, might well be
considered as the Grand Hierophant of the Church; while the mysterious and
emblematic nature of the Apocalypse assimilated the mode of instruction
adopted by Saint John the Evangelist to that practiced by the Fraternity.
We are thus led to the
conclusion that the connection of the Saints John with the Masonic Institution
is rather of a symbolic than of a historical character In dedicating our
Lodges to them, we do not so much declare our belief that they were eminent
members of the Order, as demonstrate our reverence for the great Architect of
the Universe in the symbol of His most splendid creation, the great light of
day.
In conclusion it may be
observed that the ceremony of dedication is merely the enunciation of a form
of words, and this having been done, the Lodge is thus, by the consecration
and dedication, set apart as something sacred to the cultivation of the
principles of Freemasonry, under that peculiar system which acknowledges the
two Saints John as its patrons. Royal Arch Chapters are dedicated to
Zerubbabel, Prince or Governor of Judah, and Commanderies of Knights Templar
to Saint John the Almoner. Mark Lodges should be dedicated to Hiram the
Builder; Past Masters to the Saints John, and Most Excellent Masters to King
Solomon.
*
DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE
There are five dedications of
the Temple of Jerusalem which are recorded in Jewish history:
1. The dedication of the Solomonic Temple, 1004 B.C.
2. The dedication in the time of Hezekiah, when it was purified from the
abominations of Ahaz, 726 B.C.
3. The dedication of Zerubbabel's Temple, 513 B.C.
4. The dedication of the Temple when it was purified after Judas Maccabaeus
had driven out the Syrians, 161 B.C.
5. The dedication of Herod's Temple. 22 B.C.
The fourth of these is still
celebrated by the Jews in their Feast of the Dedication. The first only is
connected with the Masonic ritual, and is commemorated in the Most Excellent
Master's Degree of the American Rite as the Celebration of the Capstone. This
dedication was made by King Solomon in the blear of the World 3000, and lasted
eight days, commencing in the month of Tisri, 15th day, during the Feast of
Tabernacles. The dedication of the Temple is called. in the English system of
Lectures, the third grand offering which consecrates the floor of a Mason s
Lodge. The same Lectures contain a tradition that on that occasion King
Solomon assembled the nine Deputy Gland Masters in the holy place, from which
all natural light had been carefully excluded, and which only received the
artificial light which emanated from the east, west, and south, and there made
the necessary arrangements. The legend must be considered as a myth; but the
inimitable prayer and in vocation which were offered up by King Solomon on e
occasion are recorded in the eighth chapter of the first Book of Kings, which
contains the Scriptural fount of the dedication.
*
DEFAMATION
See Back
*
DEFINITION OF FREEMASONRY
"The definitions of
Freemasonry," says Oliver, in his historical Landmarks of Freemasonry, "have
been numerous; but they all unite in declaring it to be a system of morality,
by the practice of which its members may advance their spiritual interest, and
mount by the theological ladder from the Lodge on earth to the Lodge in
heaven. It is a mistake, however, to suppose that Freemasonry is a system of
religion. It is but the handmaiden to religion, although it largely and
effectually illustrates one great branch of it, which is practice."
The definition in the English
Lectures is often quoted, which says that "Freemasonry is a peculiar system of
morality veiled in allegory and illustrated symbols."
But Brother Mackey believed
that a more compressive and exact definition is that it is a science which is
engaged in the search after Divine Truth, and which employs symbolism as its
method of instruction.
Another definition is by Dr.
S. Bein, who terms Freemasonry that religious and mystical society - hose aim
is moral perfection on the basis of general quality and fraternity (see
Vortaro de Esperanto, page 50).
A more elaborate definition is
by Brother W. N. Pontone, P.G.M., of Canada, as follows Masonry is something
more than a secret Society, though secrecy is an element in esoteric work,
more than ritualism, though the ritual, simple in its dignity and quaint and
rhythmic in expression, is a factor more than symbolism, though Symbolic
teaching is significant and transfigures the commonplace; more than
philosophy, though it speculatively teaches how to live wisely and well; more
than religion, but not greater than religion, yet discerning the divinity in
humanity; more than mere landmarks, though these have their defining,
historical, and traditional place; more even than brotherhood, for as in the
Pythagorean days, it is educational and intellectual as well as social and
fraternal; more than constructive and practical philanthropy, though love
crowns all; yet it is all of these together with that something more of which
language is inadequate to express the subtle mystery, even to those few choice
spirits who seek to penetrate to the heart of its often unconscious power, and
the span of life too brief to enable those who endeavor to attain the ideal
perfection of that living organism, whose countersign is manhood~ whose
inspiration is the God-head—that Masonic edifice of which love and truth form
base and spire—Nisi Dominus frustra (see Builder, volume viii, page 55).
The Latin phrase Nisi Dominus
frustra may be expressed in English as meaning Except the Masler be cheated.
Brother Roscoe Pound has contributed to the Dictionary of Religion and Ethics
(Macmillan Company, 1921), the following definition of our Institution:
The art or mystery of the
Freemasons or Free and Accepted Masons, a universal religious, moral,
charitable and benevolent fraternal organization It is religious in requiring
belief in God as a prerequisite of initiation and insisting on such belief as
one of its unalterable fundamental points. Beyond this and belief in
immortality it has no religious dogmas but expects the brother to adhere to
some religion and obligates him upon the sacred oath of the religion he
professes For the rest it seeks to promote morals by ceremonies, symbols and
lectures, inculcating life measured by reason and performance of duties toward
God, one's country, one's neighbor and oneself. It relieves needy Brothers,
cares for their dependents, educates orphans, and insists upon duties of
charity and benevolence.
.At the laying of a
cornerstone with Masonic ceremonies, an old friend, the late Colonel Edward
hi. L. Ehlers, Grand Secretary of New York, gave an eloquent oration in which
he used with fine effect a magnificent tribute to Freemasonry as our gifted
and beloved Brother understood the Masonic Institution. As a definition it may
be appropriately inserted here and should be studied with a similar statement
found elsewhere (see Charity).
Fraternities of men have
existed in some shape or form during every period of the world s history.
Doubtless in the primitive ages it became apparent that mutual protection
would afford the greatest security against the unbroken forces of nature and
the evil nature of man and secure sympathy, support and protection, to those
whose bond of union was made a common cause. Hence originated Masonry.
The origin of Masonry, like
other historical transactions, lies buried in the gloom of obscurity. Its
philosophy may be traced to the remotest ages of the world's history. Its
symbols are older than the Temple of Solomon and antedate the Pentateuch of
Moses. Its ceremonials were practiced in the ancient mysteries when Egypt
stood as the first and the most enlightened power of the then known world. Its
tenets were known by the nomadic tribes of the East and transmitted from
father to son, generation after generation, so that even today the Bedouin of
the desert recognizes the hail of the Craftsman.
The mission of Masonry is to
curb intemperate passions and to reconcile conflicting interests; to extend to
nations these principles of humanity and benevolence which should actuate
individuals, to destroy the pride of conquest and the pomp of war; to
annihilate focal prejudices and unreasonable partialities; to banish from the
world every Source of enmity and hostility, and to introduce those Social
dealings which are better r adulated to preserve peace and good order than
penal laws or political regulations.
The advantages which mankind
in genera! reap from this master Science are beyond calculation. Its blessings
are confined to no country, but are diffused with the Institution throughout
the world. Men of all languages, of all religions, of the remotest nations,
and of every habit and opinion, are united in a bond of brotherly affection..
A Mason is at home in every
country and with his friends in every clime. What Society other than our own
could make the proud boast that we know no foreign land On the plane of
Masonry we only know God and man We know no royal blood or peasant stock. Men
of wealth and simple toil, philosophers and men of low degree. royal heirs and
hard-handed peasants, meet hers upon a common ground as brothers and God is
Father of them all.
Live on for ever, thou Genius
of Masonry ! Bring light and gladness, toleration and rational liberty, to
those who dwell in darkness and superstition! reach the millions yet unborn
thy Faith, thy Hope, thy Charity!
*
DEFORMITY
The Old Constitutions declare
that the candidate for Freemasonry must be a "perfect youth, having no maim or
defect in his body." The Masonic law of physical qualifications is derived
from the Mosaic, which excluded from the priesthood a man having any blemishes
or deformities. The regulation in Freemasonry constitutes one of the
landmarks, and is illustrative of the symbolism of the Institution. The
earliest of the Old Constitutions, that of the Halliwell or Regius Manuscript
(lines 153 to 156), has this language on the subject:
To the Craft it were great
shame
To make a halt man and a lame,
For an imperfect man of such blood
Should do the Craft but little good.
This question is discussed in
Doctor Mackey's Jurisprudence of Freemasonry.
*
DEGREES
The word degree, in its
primitive meaning, signifies a step. The degrees of Freemasonry are, then, the
steps by which the candidate ascends from a lower to a higher condition of
knowledge. It is now the opinion of the best scholars, that the division of
the Masonic system into Degrees was the work of the revivalists of the
beginning of the eighteenth century; that before that period there was but one
Degree, or rather one common platform of ritualism; and that the division into
Masters, Fellows, and Apprentices was simply a division of ranks, there being
but one initiation for all.
In 1717 the whole body of the
Fraternity consisted only of Entered Apprentices, who were recognized by the
thirty-nine Regulations, compiled in 1720, as among the law-givers of the
Craft, no change in those Regulations being allowed unless first submitted
"even to the youngest Apprentice."
In the Old Charges, collected
by Anderson and approved in 1722, the Degree of Fellow Craft is introduced as
being a necessary qualification for Grand Master, although the word degree is
not used. "No brother can be a Grand Master unless he has been a Fellow Craft
before his election." And in the Manner of constituting a New Lodge of the
same date, the Master and Wardens are taken from "among the Fellow Crafts,"
which Derrnott explains by saying that "they were called Fellow Crafts because
the Masons of old times never gave any man the title of Master Mason until he
had first passed the chair." In the thirteenth of the Regulations of 1720,
approved in 1721, the orders or Degrees of Master and Fellow Craft are
recognized in the following words: "Apprentices must be admitted Masters and
Fellow Crafts only in the Grand Lodge." Between that period and 1738, the
system of Degrees had been perfected; for Anderson, who, in that year,
published the second edition of the Book of Constitutions, changed the
phraseology of the Old Charges to suit the altered condition of things, and
said, "a Prentice, when of age and expert, may become an Entered Prentice or a
Free-Mason of the lowest degree, and upon his due improvements a Fellow Craft
and a Master-Mason" (see Old Charge Ill, Constitutions, 1738, page 145).
No such words are found in the
Charges as printed in 1723; and if at that time the distinction of the three
Degrees had been as well defined as in 1738, Anderson would not have failed to
insert the same language in his first edition. That he did not, leads to the
fair presumption that the ranks of Fellow Craft and Master were not then
absolutely recognized as distinctive degrees. The earliest ritual extant,
which is contained in the Grand Mystery, published in 1725, makes no reference
to any Degrees, but gives only what we may suppose was the common
understanding of the initiation in use about that time.
The division of the Masonic
system into three Degrees must have grown up between 1717 and 1730, but in 80
gradual and imperceptible a manner that we are unable to fix the precise date
of the introduction of each Degree. In 1717 there was evidently but one
Degree, or rather one form of initiation, and one catechism. Perhaps about
1721 the three Degrees were introduced, but the second and third were probably
not perfected for many years. Even as late as 1735 the Entered Apprentice's
Degree contained the most prominent form of initiation, and he who was an
Apprentice was, for all practical purposes, a Freemason. It was not until
repeated improvements, by the adoption of new ceremonies and new regulations,
that the Degree of Master Mason took the place which it now occupies; having
been confined at first to those who had passed the chair.
*
DEGREES, ANCIENT CRAFT
See Ancient Craft Masonry
*
DEGREES, ANDROGYNOUS
Degrees that are conferred on
females as well as males (see Androgynous Degrees).
*
DEGREES, APOCALYPTIC
See Apocalyptic Degrees
*
DEGREES, HIGH
See High Degrees
*
DEGREES, HONORARY
See Honorary Degrees
*
DEGREES, INEFFABLE
See Ineffable Degrees
*
DEGREES OF CHIVALRY
The religious and military
orders of knighthood which existed in the Middle Ages, such as the Knights
Templar and Knights of Malta, which were incorporated into the Masonic system
and conferred as Masonic degrees, have been called Degrees of Chivalry. They
are Christian in character, and seek to perpetuate in a symbolic form the idea
on which the original Orders were founded. The Companion of the Red Cross,
although conferred, in the United States of America, in a Commandery of
Knights Templar, and as preliminary to that Degree, is not properly a Degree
of chivalry.
*
DEGREES OF KNOWLEDGE
Fessler was desirous of
abolishing all the advanced Degrees, but being unable to obtain the consent of
the Royal York Grand Lodge, he composed out of them a new system of five
Degrees which he called Degrees of Knowledge, the German being the words
Erkenntnis-Stufen, to each of which was annexed a form of initiation. "The
Degrees of Knowledge," says Findel (History of Freemasonry, page 496),
"consisted of a regular detailed course of instruction in each system of the
Lodges, whether extinct or in full activity, and were to end with at complete
critical remodelling of the history of Freemasonry, and of the Fraternity of
Freemasons from the most ancient period down to our own day" (see Fessler,
Rite of).
*
DEGREES, PHILOSOPHICAL
See Philosophic Degrees
*
DEGREES, SYMBOLIC
See Symbolic Degrees
*
DIASTOLE
The counterpart of Tuathal.
Mackenzie, in the Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, says: Deiseil is used by the
Druids as a term for the circumambulation of the sacred cairns. Derived from
dead south, and tub a course that is, in a southward direction following the
course of the sun. The opposite is Tuathal, in a northward direction, as is
observed at the present day in approaching the grave with a corpse.
*
DEISM
In an abstract sense, Deism,
or Theism, is the belief in God, but the word is generally used to designate
those who, believing in God, reject a belief in the Scriptures as a
revelation. The sect of Deists which, in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, enrolled among its followers many great intellects, such as Toland,
Collins, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Fume, Gibbon, and Voltaire—is said by
Findel (History of Freemasonry, page 126) to have "necessarily exercised an
important influence on the Fraternity of Masons"; and, he adds, that "we
cannot doubt that it contributed essentially to its final transformation from
an Operative to a universal Speculative Society." The refutation of this
remarkable assertion is best found in the first of the Charges adopted at the
revival in 1717, and which was published in the Constitutions of 1793. A Mason
is obliged, by his tenure, obey the moral law; and if he rightly understands
the art, he will never be a stupid atheist nor an irreligious libertine,"
where the words irreligious libertine refer to the Freethinkers or Deists of
that period. It is evident, then, that the Deists could have had no influence
at that time in molding the Masonic organization.
There is still better evidence
to be found in the old records of Freemasonry during several preceding
centuries, when the Operative was its dominant character, and when the dogmas
of Christianity were fully recognized, which must necessarily have been the
case, since Freemasonry during that period was under the patronage of the
Church. There is, in fact, no evidence to sustain Findel's theory, that in the
transition stage from the Operative to the Speculative, when such men as the
deeply religious Ashmole were among its members, the Deists could have infused
any If their principles into its organization or exercised any influence in
changing its character.
Freemasonry, at that time
sectarian, demanded almost a Christian belief—at all events, a Christian
allegiance—from its disciples. It is now more tolerant, and Deism presents no
disqualification for initiation. An atheist would be rejected, but none would
now be refused admission on religious grounds who subscribed to the dogmas of
a belief in God and a resurrection to eternal life.
*
DEITY
See Great Architect of the
Universe
*
DeKALB, BARON
See Kalb Johann
*
DELALANDE, CHARLES FLORENT
JACQUES
A French litterateur of the
last century, who was the author of many didactic and poetic articles on
freemasonry inserted in the Mirror de la Vérité, the Annales Maçonniques, and
other collections. He was also the author of the Defense et Apologia de la
Franche-Maconnerie, ou Refutation des accusations dirigées contre elle à
différentes Epoques et par divers Auteurs, meaning the Defense and Apology of
Freemasonry, or Refutation of the Accusations directed against Her at several
periods and by various Writers, a prize essay before a Lodge in Leghorn,
published in 1814. He founded the archives of the Lodge of the Philosophic
Rite at Douay, France.
*
DELALANDE, JOSEPH JEROME
One of the most distinguished
French astronomers of the eighteenth century. His name was Joseph Jérome
Lefrançais but when quite a young man he was received at the Court of King
Frederic II he called himself Lefrançais de la Lande, which has often been
written as a surname Delalande and Lalande, the latter being used by his
biographers Brother Louis Amiable. Delalande was born at Bourg-en-Bresse,
France, July 11, 1732, and died at Paris, April 4, 1807. He founded a Lodge of
the Sciences for uniting Freemasons especially devoted to scientific study and
research. At the suggestion of Helvetius this scope was enlarged to those
occupied with literature, science and the fine arts. The Lodge bore the name
of the Nine Sisters, referring to the Muses, the Greek goddesses presiding
over the arts and sciences. Of this Lodge Benjamin Franklin became Worshipful
Masters Delalande was one of the founders of the Grand Orient of France and
published. in 17~ n able memoir upon the History of Freemasonry, which was
subsequently incorporated in the twentieth volume of the Encyclopedie
Méthodique.
*
DELAUNAY, FRANÇOIS H.
STANISLAUS
A French litterateur and
historian, and author of many works on Freemasonry, the principal of which is
the Tuileur des trente-trois degrés de l'Ecossisme du Rite Ancien et Accepts
meaning Handbook of the Thirty-three Degrees of the Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite. This is a work of great erudition, and of curious research in
reference to the etymology of the words of the Rite. These etymologies,
however, are not always correct; and, indeed, some of them are quite absurd,
betraying a want of the proper appreciation of the construction of Hebrew,
from which language all of the words are derived.
*
DELAWARE
There is some uncertainty
about the first Lodge established in Delaware. The Grand Lodge of Scotland in
1764 is said to have issued a warrant to Union Lodge, No. 191, at Middletown,
for General Marjoribank's Regiment. Failing this, Lodge No. 5, at Cantwell's
Bridge, warranted on June 4, 1765, by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, was the
pioneer Lodge of the State. The Grand Lodge of Delaware was established under
rather unusual circumstances. Nine Brethren. said to re represent Lodge No.
31, Grand Lodge of Maryland and Nos. 33, 96, and 14, Grand Lodge of
Pennsylvania resolved to form a Grand Lodge. On June 7, 1806. Grand Officers
were appointed and, without any previous installation, opened the Grand Lodge.
The Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania refused to recognize it as five Lodges were
deemed necessary to form a Grand Lodge and three of the Lodges taking part
were indebted to the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania for fees and dues. Not until
1816, when Lodge No. 5, at Cantwell's Bridge, joined it by permission of the
Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, and made up the number of five constituent
Lodges, was the new Grand Lodge fully recognized.
The first Chapter in the State
was opened on January 24, 1806, by a Convention at which were present Charles
Mareighny of New York; John Sellers, Wilmington; George Monroe, Edinburgh,
James Jefferis, Belfast; Evan Thomas, Santa Cruz; and Edwin Roche, Virginia.
In 1831, this Chapter amalgamated with Hiram, No. 6, as Washington and
Lafayette Chapter, No. 1. On June 24, 1817, delegates from the seven Chapters
in Delaware, namely Hope, No. 4; Union, No. 7; Temple, No. 3; Washington, No.
1; Hiram, No. 6; Washington, No. 5, and one at Newcastle, held a Convention at
Wilmington and established a Grand Holy Royal Arch Chapter. About the year
1856, however, it ceased to meet and, except for an irregular Convocation held
in 1859, nothing more was heard of a Grand Chapter of Delaware until January,
1868. A meeting of Royal Arch Masons was then held which finally- proceeded to
eject Grand Officers and adopt a Constitution. A Charter was issued by the
General Grand High Priest, and at a meeting on January 20, 1869, the Grand
Chapter of Delaware was organized and the Officers installed. Delaware is one
of the States which make the Order of High Priesthood an essential
qualification to the installation of the High Priest elect.
Gunning Bedford Council, No.
1, at Wilmington, was granted a Dispensation on February 10, 1917, and a
Charter on September 30, 1918. It has been said that Jeremy L. Cross, while on
a lecture tour, conferred the Degrees on some of the Brethren in Wilmington
and Newcastle, but of this there is no evidence.
A Commandery was organized in
Delaware by the Grand Encampment of the United States at Wilmington. namely,
Saint Johns? No. 1, which was chartered on September 18 1868. Delaware Lodge
of Perfection, chartered on September 2, 1910; Wilmington Council of Princes
of Jerusalem, chartered on September 91, 1911; Wilmington Chapter of Rose
Croix. chartered on September 21, 1911, and Delaware Consistory, chartered on
October 3, 1912 are all at Wilmington, under the Supreme Council, Ancient and
Accepted Scottish Rite. Northern Masonic Jurisdiction.
DELEGATES
Past Masters or others, sent,
by a Lodge to represent it in the Grand Lodge, in place of the Master and
Wardens, if these are absent. have been in some of the American Jurisdictions
called delegates. The word is a modern one, and without good authority. Those
who represent a Lodge in the Grand Lodge, whether the Master and Wardens or
their proxies, are properly representatives.
*
DELIBERATION-, COUNCIL OF
See Grand Consistory
*
DELTA
A triangle. The name of a
piece of furniture in a Commandery of Nights Templar, which, being of a
triangular form, derives its name from the Greek letter ~. delta. It is also
the title given, in the French and Scottish Rites, to the luminous triangle
which encloses the Ineffable Name (see
Triangle).
*
DEMETER
The Greek name of Ceres, which
see
*
DEBIT
A Freemason is said to DEBIT
from his Lodge when he withdraws his membership; and a DEBIT is a document
granted by the Lodge which certifies that, that decision has been accepted by
the Lodge, and that the demitting Brother is clear of the books and in good
standing as a Freemason. To demit, which is the act of the member, is, then to
resign; and to grant a demit, which is the act, of the Lodge, is to grant a
certificate that the resignation has been accepted. lt. is derived from the
French reflective verb se démettre, which. according to the dictionary of the
Academy, means to withdraw' from an office, to resign an employment. Thus it
gives as an example. Il s`est démis de la charge en faveur d`un tel. meaning
that he resigned (demitted) his office in favor of such a one.
The application for a demit is
a matter of form, and there is no power in the Lodge to refuse it, if the
applicant. has paid all his dues and is free of all charges.. It is true that
a regulation of 1722 says that no number of Brethren shall withdraw or
separate themselves from the Lodge in which the were made, without, a
dispensation; vet it is not plane how the la v can be enforced, for
Freemasonry being a voluntary association, there is no power in any Lodge to
insist on any Brother continuing a connection with it which he desires to
sever (see, on this subject, Doctor Mackey's Jurisprudence of Freemasonry).
The usual object in applying
for a DEBIT is to enable the Brother to join some other Lodge, into which he
cannot be admitted without some evidence that he was in good standing in his
former Lodge. This is in accordance with an old law found in the Regulations
of 1663 in the following; words: "No person hereafter who shall be accepted a
Freemason, shall be admitted into any Lodge or Assembly until he has brought a
certificate of the time and place of his acceptation from the Lodee that
accepted him unto the Master of that limit or division where such Lodge is
kept."
Brother Hunt, Grand Secretary
of Iowa, wrote to us (March 21, 1923) as follows: The word dimit I believe has
never been used in England. and the word DEBIT is seldom used there the words
withdrawal or resignation being the most common ones used. In the Regulations
of 1723 the only restriction on the right of a Brother to withdraw is found in
Section 8 of the General Regulations which provides that they should not
withdraw in numbers unless the Lodge becomes too numerous etc. This
restriction was later withdrawn, and at the present time the rule is that
Freemasonry being quite voluntary a member of a Lodge may server his
connection with it any moment he pleases even though his dues are unpaid or he
is under charges.
When a Brother leaves a Lodge
he is entitled to a certificate stating the circumstances under which he so
left. This is provided by Section 213 of the Grand Lodge Constitution. It has
been held that if a Brother leaves under a cloud whether this cloud be unpaid
dues or charges that the Lodge issuing the certificate should state the
circumstances under which he left but Section 212 provides that one who has
been excluded or voluntarily withdraws from a Lodge without having complied
with its By-laws or the General Regulations of the Craft shall not he eligible
to Join any other Lodge until that Lodge shall be made acquainted with his
former neglect. If any Lodge receives a petition and accepts him and fails to
make due inquiry as to the conditions under which the Brother left his former
Lodge they are liable to his former Lodge for any arrearages which he may have
owed them at the time of his withdrawal or exclusion.
This practice seems rather
strange to us in this country but I believe that in the early days the duty-
of a Freemason to become affiliated with some Lodge was not emphasized as it
was later or as it is at the present time. A Brother had a right to resign
membership, or as it was usually called DEBIT from his Lodge at any time he
pleased, and his letter of resignation had much the same effect as a request
for a DEBIT does at the present time except that the moment this letter was
filed with the Secretary the act became irrevocable and if he repented and
desired to withdraw the letter. he could not do so but must petition for
membership, the same as another non-affiliate.
In the Grand Lodge of England
there is the case of a Brother who wrote to his local Lodge Secretary
resigning membership in the Lodge The next day he changed his mind and asked
to be allowed to withdraw the resignation. Both letters were received by the
Secretary before the next meeting of the Lodge but the letter of resignation
was held to be final. The Grand Lodge held that there was no other way in
which the fact of the resignation could be undone except as a joining member.
This decision also seems strange to us , because we hold that a request for a
DEBIT is inoperative until it has been read to the Lode, and there would be
nothing to prevent a secretary from returning a request for a dimit to a
Brother requesting it provided such request was made before it had been read
to the Lodge.
However it all goes to show
that Masonically the term DEBIT is the same as a resignation of membership.
The verb DEBIT denotes the act of the Brother and not the act of the Lodge the
noun DEBIT is a Certificate issued by the Lodge, certifying that the brother's
membership has terminated. at his own request. Therefore, there is practically
no difference between a DEBIT and a resignation of membership (see dignity).
*
DENDERAH
A ruined town of Upper Egypt,
of great interest in consequence of its astronomical allusions on the ceiling
of the main portico supported on twenty-four columns which is covered with
figures and hieroglyphies. This is in the principal temple, which is 220 by 50
feet. The numerous mythological figures are arranged in zodiacal fashion.
Recent archeological travelers doubt the reference to astronomy, in
Consequence of the absence of the Crab. The temple dates from the period of
Cleopatra and the earlier Roman emperors and is one of the finest and best
preserved structures or the kind in Egypt. The chief deity was Athor, the
goddess of night, corresponding with the Greek Aphrodite (see Zodiac).
*
DENMARK
The first Masonic Lodge in
Denmark was opened in Copenhagen, by Baron G. O. Munnich. on the 11th of
November, 1743, umber a Charter, as he climbed from the Lodge of the Three
Globes in Berlin. In the next year a new Lodge named Zerubbabel was formed by
three members separating from the former Lodge. Both of these Bodies, Saint
Martins received as No. 204, on October 9, 1749 a Warrant from Lord Byron,
Grand Master of England. granted a Warrant to the second Lodge as No. 197 on
the English Register. The two Lodges united in 1767 under the name of
Zerubbabel of the North Star and worked alternately in Danish and in German.
When a purely Danish Lodge was instituted in 1778, Zerubbabel Lodge confined
itself entirely to the use of the German language. In 1749 Lord Byron granted
a Patent to Count Danneskiold Laurvig as Provincial Grand Master of Denmark
and Norway. A Lodge had been established at Copenhagen, by the Grand Lodge of
Scotland under the name of Le petit Nombre, meaning the little number. and in
1703 its Master was elevated by that body to the rank of a Provincial Grand
Master. In 1792 Prince Charles became the sole head of the Danish Lodges, and
the Grand Lodge of Denmark may be considered to have been then established. He
died in 1836, and the Crown Prince, afterward Christian VIII, became the
Protector of the Danish Lodges. and his son and Successor Frederick VII,
became Grand Master of the Grand Master. It was decreed on January 6, 1850, bv
the Grand Master that the Swedish Rite should he used thenceforward in all
Lodges. The Crown in Denmark is well disposed to the Craft, the King being
Grand Master (see Norway and Sweden).
*
D'EON, CHEVALIER
Born October 5, 1728, at
Tonnerre in Burgundy, and christened Charles Genevieve Louise Auguste André
Timothée Déon De Beaumont. Led most singular career. After living nearly forty
years an active life as a man the Chevalier voluntarily testified in an
English Court that he had been masquerading during this entire period and that
he was actually a woman. After his death this testimony was found to be
untrue. The Chevalier was born of parents who stood high among the nobility.
His baptismal certificate asserts that the above names were those given the
child in regular and usual form. The family name was Deon but King Louis XV in
1757 addressed a communication to the Chevalier as D'Eon.
D'Elon studied law and
literature in Paris at the College Mazarin. Admitted an advocate after
securing the License in Canon and Civil Law. A brilliant student, he was made
a Censor Royal of works on history and letters. Even at this early age he
published a book on Historical Finance. D'Eon took up fencing and it was said
only five could hold their own against him in all Europe. The French King
honored D`Eon with a commission in a cavalry regiment about 175 when the
Chevalier rode from Vienna to Paris with important dispatches to the King in
thirty-six hours less time than it took the special Austrian couriers and this
notwithstanding the misfortune to break his leg while on the road. His
Physical endurance proved rugged and masculine. Louis XV, who sent Chevalier
Douglas and his young secretary, D'Eon after his twenty-sixth year, to Russia
as confidential envoys to protect Louis' interests there as a keen rivalry
existed between France and England for the support of Russia. So ably did
D'Eon serve that he was openly made Secretary to the Embassy and privately
admitted to the inner circle of the Secret Service. This he gave up in 1760,
when he left Russia. Probably he used his effeminate appearance in secret
service work which enabled him to assume the disguise of a woman. Many stories
were told of his experiences although the Chevalier's personal conduct was not
Subject to reproach. He left Russia in 1760 to join his regiment in the Seven
Years War. D'Eon was wounded in head and thigh at Ultrop and rendered
distinguished Service. The Treaty of 1763 ended the Seven Years War and was
largely negotiated by D' Eon who went to England. The French ambassador soon
returned to France and D'Eon was first appointed Chargé d'Affaires and later
Minister Plenipotentiary. When he returned to France England entrusted to him
its official ratification to the Court of Versailles. King Louis XV gave him
the Royal and Military order of Saint Louis. and his proper title became the
Chevalier D'Eon. He was superseded in the Embassy by an enemy, Count de
Guerchy. The Chevalier refused to turn over some secret papers said to include
charges of corruption against the Ministers who had concluded the Treaty and
plans for the invasion of England. D'Eon retained the papers, but the death of
Louis XV, 1774, put an end to the invasion of England and the documents lost
their value. During this period of intrigue the Chevalier never lost the
confidence of Louis XV although from the time the difficulty commenced in 1763
the question was constantly propagated as to the true sex of D'Eon. A pamphlet
in the interests of De Guerchy was the first to print scurrilous statements
reflecting upon D'Eon. Eliot Hodgkin, Richmond, Surrey, possessed the original
manuscripts of D'Eon's account of his current expenditures from day to day.
Several items clearly appear indicating his acceptance into the Masonic
Fraternity and his receiving the first Three Degrees. Although the question of
his sex had already begun to be discussed, he was admitted to the French
Lodge, No. 376, on the Roll of the Grand Lodge of England, known as La loge de
l'Immortalité, formed June 16, and formally constituted September 8, in 1766,
at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, London. Probably Worshipful Master M.
de Vignoles presided at D'Eon's initiation and the first entry showing
disbursement of funds on Freemasonry is dated May 18, 1768. In January, 1769,
an item appears covering four shillings seven pence paid at time of receiving
the Third Degree. Although this Lodge did not register in the Grand Lodge
Books any members after 1767 and therefore the Chevalier's name does not
appear on the records of the Grand Lodge, Brother Henry Sadler located in the
old archives of Grand Lodge a document which supplies authoritative evidence
that Chevalier D'Eon served as Junior Warden of this Lodge between 1769 and
1770. The number of the Lodge, originally 376, was about this same time
changed to 303, and the records of the Grand Lodge show it was erased from the
books in 1775 due to "not having contributed," etc. D'Eon, an exile from
France then resided in England and was fortunate to have a sincere friend in
Earl Ferrers, in 1762 to 1763 Grand Master of the Moderns in England, who
offered shelter to the Chevalier which he gratefully accepted as he was
subject to annoyance due to the notoriety given the question of his sex and
the danger of kidnaping by persons financially interested. Betting on the
question of the Chevalier's sex came to such a stage that a scheme of
Insurance on the sex of M. Le Chevalier, or Mlle. La Chevaliere, D'Eon,
resulted in the policies being taken up to the amount of 120,000 pounds. It
was a practice, in the endeavor to put a legal aspect on certain forms of
gambling, for the speculators to issue a sort of Insurance Policy covering
certain mooted questions. Until 1845 the English courts held wagers as
contracts and the winner of a bet could enforce payment through a Court of
Law. So much money became involved about D'Eon and 80 many lawsuits were
imminent that it was decided to bring the case to trial. In 1777, therefore,
one of the insurance brokers presented two witnesses, one a doctor named Le
Goux, and the other a journalist, M. de Morande, who swore that of their own
personal knowledge D'Eon was a woman. Had the English Court, presided over by
Lord Mansfield, been familiar with the history of these two witnesses, it
would no doubt have returned a different verdict. The verdict by the jury was
that the unfortunate Chevalier was a woman and, surprisingly, just at this
time D'Eon himself, who had been negotiating through Beaumarchais for the
restoration of the secret papers, made an official declaration to the French
Ministers that he actually was a woman. He had also been negotiating with
France for a pension and Louis XVI, then King, agreed to increase the pension
and permit the return to France of the Chevalier only on the condition that
"she resume the garments of her sex" and never appear in any part of the
kingdom except in garments befitting a female. D'Eon, for some reason no one
has been able to explain satisfactorily, accepted the condition without
argument and thenceforward became La Chevaliere D'Eon.
The two contending Grand Lodges in England at that time. known as the Ancient
and the Moderns, made much of this issue. The Ancient claimed that here was an
evidence of modern laxity which permitted the admittance into the Masonic
Order of a person not fulfilling all the physical requirements of the Old
Charges and the controversy subjected the Fraternity to no little criticism
and satire. The Chevalier, after accepting the condition that he discard male
attire, never again attempted to enter a Masonic Lodge although, during the
period from 1769 to 1774 at which time he spent twelve to fifteen hours a day
at his desk and produced scores of Lettres, Piecés Justificatives, Memoires
pour seruir, Documents Authentiques, and a thirteen-volume book entitled Les
Loisirs do Chevalier de Beaumont, he also wrote a rough draft of an essay
attempting to compare the merits of the Society of Freemasons and the Society
of Friends. This manuscript is included in the collection owned by J. Eliot
Hodgkin, from which the following is quoted:
Freemasonry and Quakerism.
What I say here about Masonry is not meant to win the Gold or Silver Medal,
advertised in the London Courier Français, No........of ....page ....... , but
only to win, in my heart, a prize graven on the Masonic Compass and Triangles
each point of which, like the Trinity, rests on Truth Virtue, and Benevolence,
common foundations of Equality and Justice between Brothers by birth and by
Christianity, as between Brethren by Mason, enlightened by the Sun of Truth,
inasmuch as this is the Truth held by the primitive Christians of Jerusalem
and Antioch. But since the Greek, Latin, Gallican, and Anglican Churches have
organized themselves into formidable bodies, they deride, individually and
collectively, the sombre Society of good Quakers, who are good only at
whining, sniveling, and having no poor among them while the Freemasons have
established themselves in Worshipful Lodges, in order to laugh, drink, sing at
their ease, and display benevolence towards their Brethren and Fellows
dispersed over the Earth, without (infringing) the Laws of Moses or of the
Paschal (Covenant). They spread sunshine, God's consolation, and true
happiness m the heart of all human beings capable of appreciating simple
Virtue. The happiness of man kind and the well-being of the Material World are
to be found in Nature, Reason, Truth, Justice, and Simplicity, and not in huge
books compiled by Philosophy and Divinity. All the State-craft of Machiavelli
is only fit to drag man to . . . to the cells at Bedlam- or to lead him to
Montfaucon, to Tyburn, or to the underground Pantheodemonium of the Lower
Empire of Pluto. Lord Chancellor Bacon, who, of all England, was the Doctor
most stuffed with Greek, Latin and Law, was right when he said "Honesty best
Policy." These two words em body all that is good. I hold the religion of the
Quakers very beautiful, because it is so simple.
August 6, 1777, D'Eon for the
first time in London appeared dressed as a woman and exactly a week later he
donned his uniform as Captain of Dragoons for convenience in traveling, the
last time he appeared in London in the garb of a man. He went to France
immediately, was presented to Marie Antoinette, and took up residence with his
mother in Tonnerre. It is said that he retired for a time to the Convent of
Les Filles de Ste Marie and actually resided at La Maison des demoiselles de
Saint Cyr. However, he tendered his services to the French Fleet when the
American Revolution broke out, which offer the French Government hastily
declined. He returned to England in November, 1785, to settle come financial
affairs and resided there until his death, never discarding his feminine garb.
The French Revolution stopped his pension and it is said that he received a
small pension in England from George III but he was in straitened
circumstances and maintained himself by his skill in fencing, but was
compelled to sell his jewels, then his library, and other possessions. He died
May 21, 1810, in seclusion and penury. After his death an autopsy was made by
a celebrated surgeon, Thomas Copeland, who gave a professional certificate
stating without question that the deceased had been of the male sex. This fact
was confirmed by Pére Elisée, a surgeon of renown who had belonged to the
Fathers of Charity at Grenoble but left France when his confreres emigrated
and at the death of the Chevalier attended the Duke of Queensberry. In later
years Pére Elisée became King's Surgeon to Louis XVIII. The Earl of
Yarborough, Sir Sidney Smith and a number of friends inspected the body, and
the question as to the sex of the Chevalier D'Eon was finally settled. Several
authors have discussed this remarkable personage, as Andrew Lang, Historical
Mysteries, and the encyclopedias devote space to him; but the most
satisfactory account for Freemasons is a paper by Brother W. J. Chetwode
Crawley transactions, Quatuor Coronati Lodge, volume xvi, 1903, pages 229-59).
*
DEPOSITE
The deposit of the Substitute
Ark is celebrated in the Degree of Select Master, and is supposed to have
taken place in the last year of the building of Solomon's Temple, or 1000 B.C.
This is therefore adopted as the date in Cryptic Freemasonry. In the legendary
history of Freemasonry as preserved in the Cryptic Degrees, two deposits are
spoken of; the deposit of the Substitute Ark, and the deposits of the Word,
both being referred to the same year and being different parts of one
transaction. They have, therefore, sometimes been confounded. The deposit of
the Ark was made by the three Grand Masters; that of the Word by Hiram Abif
alone.
*
DEPOSITE, YEAR OF
See Anno Depositionu
*
DEPTH OF THE LODGE
This is said to be from the
surface to the center, and is the expression of an idea connected with the
symbolism of the form of the Lodge as indicating the universality of
Freemasonry. The oldest definition was that the depth extended to the center
of the earth, which, says Dr. Oliver, is the greatest extent that can be
imagined (see Form of the Lodge).
*
DEPUTATION
The authority granted by the
Grand Master to a Brother to act as Provincial Grand Master was formerly
called a deputation. Thus, in Anderson's Constitutions (second edition, 1738,
page 191) it is said, "Lovel, Grand Master, granted a Deputation to Sir Edward
Matthews to be Provincial Grand Master of Shropshire." It was also used in the
sense in which Dispensation is now employed to denote the Grand Master's
authority for opening a Lodge. In German Freemasonry, a deputation is a
committee of one Lodge appointed to visit and confer with some other Lodge.
*
DEPUTE GRAND MASTER
Depute is a Scotticism used in
the Laws and Regulations of the Grand Lodge of Scotland to designate the
officer known in England and America as Deputy Grand Master. The word comes
from the Latin deputo, meaning to cut off or select.
*
DEPUTY
In French Freemasonry, the
officers who represent a Lodge in the Grand Orient are called its deputies.
The word is also wed in another sense. When two Lodges are affiliated, that
is, have adopted a compact of union, each appoints a deputy to represent it at
the meetings of the other. He is also called garant d'amitie, meaning in
French the pledge of friendship, and is entitled to a seat in the East.
*
DEPUTY GRAND CHAPTER
In the Constitution adopted in
January, 1798, by the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of the Northern States of
Americans which afterward became the General Grand Chapter, it was provided
that Grand Bodies of the system should be established in the several States,
which should be known as Deputy Grand Royal Arch Chapters. But in the
succeeding year, on the adoption of a new Constitution, the title was changed
to State Grand Chapters.
*
DEPUTY GRAND MASTER
The assistant and, in his
absence, the representative of the Grand Master. The office originated in the
year 1720, when it was agreed that the Grand Master might appoint both his
Grand Wardens and a Deputy Grand Master (see Constitutions, 1738, page 111).
The object evidently was to
relieve a nobleman, who was Grand Master, from troublesome details of office.
The Constitutions give a Deputy Grand Master no other prerogatives than those
which he claims in the Grand Master's right. He presides over the Craft in the
absence of the Grand Master, and, on the death of that officer, succeeds to
his position until a new election. In England, and the custom has been
followed in a few States of America, he is appointed by the Grand Master; but
the general usage in the United States of America is to elect him.
*
DEPUTY LODGE
In Germany, a
Deputations-Loge, or Deputy Lodge, was formed by certain members of a Lodge
who lived at a remote distance from it, and who met under the name and by the
authority of the mother Lodge, through whom alone it was known to the Grand
Lodge, or the other Lodges. Such Bodies are not known in England or America,
and have not been so common in Germany as formerly.
*
DEPUTY MASTER
In England, when a Prince of
the Blood Royal is Master of a Private Lodge, his functions are performed by
an officer appointed by him, and called a Deputy Master, who exercises all the
prerogatives and enjoys all the privileges of a regular Master. In Germany,
the Master of every Lodge is assisted by a Deputy Master, who is either
appointed by the Master, or elected by the members, and who exercises the
powers of the Master in the absence of that officer.
*
DERMOTT, LAURENCE
He was at first the Grand
Secretary, and afterward the Deputy Grand Master, of that body of Freemasons
who in 1751 formed the Grand Lodge of the Ancient, which see, stigmatizing the
regular Freemasons as Moderns. In 1756, Dermott published the Book of
Constitutions of his Grand Lodge, under the title of Ahiman Rezon; or a help
to ad that are or would be Free and Accepted Masons, containing the
quintessence of ad that has been published on the subject of Freemasonry. This
work passed through several editions, the last of which was edited, in 1813,
by Thomas Harper, the Deputy Grand Master of the Ancient Masons, under the
title of The Constitutions of Freemasonry or Ahiman Rezon.
Dermott was undoubtedly the
moving and sustaining spirit of the great conflict which, from the middle of
the eighteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, divided the
Freemasons of England; and his reputation has not been spared by the adherents
of the constitutional Grand Lodge. Lawrie (History of Freemasonry, page 117)
says of him: "The unfairness with which he has stated the proceedings of the
moderns, the bitterness with which he treats them, and the quackery and
vainglory with which he displays his own pretensions to superior knowledge,
deserve to be reprobated by every class of Masons who are anxious for the
purity of their Order and the preservation of that charity and mildness which
ought to characterize all their proceedings."
There is perhaps much truth in
this estimate of Dermott's character. As a polemic, he was sarcastic, bitter,
uncompromising, and not altogether sincere or veracious. But in intellectual
attainments he was inferior to none of his adversaries, and in a philosophical
appreciation of the character of the Masonic Institution he was in advance of
the spirit of his age. It has often been asserted that he invented the Royal
Arch Degree by dismembering the Third Degree, but that this is entirely
unfounded is proved by the fact that he was Exalted to the Royal Arch Degree
in 1746, while the Degree was being conferred in London before 1744 (see Royal
Arch Degree). Dermott was born in Ireland in 1720, initiated in 1740,
installed Worshipful Master of Lodge No. 26 at Dublin in 1746, was Grand
Secretary of the Ancient from 1752 to 1771 at London, the Deputy Grand Master
from that year until 1771, then once more Deputy from 1782 to 1787, dying in
1791 An excellent, if brief, biography of his Masonic career has been written
by Brother W. M. Bywater and was privately printed in 1884 at London under the
title of Notes on Law: Dermott G. S. and His Work. Another essay, equally
delightful, on Laurence Dermott, is by Brother Richard J. Reece, Secretary of
the Grand Masters Lodge, No. 1, of England.
Brother Arthur Heiron's
pamphlet, the Craft in the Eighteenth Century, says that "Dermott was
musically inclined, and very fond of singing at the meetings of his Grand
Lodge but that he was not always popular amongst the Ancient is proved by the
fact that in 1752 four of their members accused him of having 'actually sung
and lectured the Brethren out of their senses,' but in 1753 the W. M. in the
chair at an Emergency held at the King and Queen, Cable Street, Rosemary Lane,
thanked him for his last new song and 'hoped that the applause of his Brethren
would induce Brother Dermott, G. S., to compose another against the next St.
John's Day."'
*
DERWENTWATER
Charles Radcliffe, titular
Earl of Derwentwater, which title he assumed on the death of the unmarried son
of his brother, James Radcliffe, Earl of Derwentwater, who was executed for
rebellion in 1716, in London, was the first Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of
France, to which office he was elected on the organization of the Grand Lodge
in 1725. Charles Radcliffe was arrested with his brother, Lord Derwentwater,
in 1715, for having taken part in the rebellion of that year to restore the
house of Stuart to the throne. Both were convicted of treason, and the Earl
suffered death, but his brother Charles made his escape to France, and thence
to Rome, where he received a trifling pension from the Pretender.
After a residence at Rome of
some few years, he went to Paris, where, with the Chevalier Maskelyne,
Heguetty, and some other Englishmen, he established a Lodge in the Rue des
Boucheries, which was followed by the organization of several others, and
Radcliffe who had taken the title of Earl of Derwentwater on the death of his
youthful nephew, the son of the last Earl, was elected Grand Master. Leaving
France for a time, in 1736 he was succeeded in the Grand Mastership by Lord
Harnouester.
So far we follow Brother
Mackey but Brother Hawkins adds the substance of this paragraph: Such is the
statement usually made, but R. F. Gould, in his Concise History of
Freemasonry, suggests that Harnouester is a corruption of Darwentwater and
that the two persons are identical, the Earl of Derwentmater being really
elected Grand Master in 1736.
Radcliffe made many visits to
England after that time in unsuccessful pursuit of a pardon. Finally, on the
attempt of the young Pretender to excite a rebellion in 1745, he sailed from
France to join him, and the vessel in which he had embarked having been
captured by an English cruiser, he was carried to London and beheaded on
December 8, 1746.
*
DESAGULIERS, JOHN THEOPHILUS
Of all those who were engaged
in the revival of Freemasonry in the beginning of the eighteenth century, none
performed a more important part than he to whom may be well applied the
epithet of the Father of Modern speculative Freemasonry, and to whom, perhaps,
more than any other person, is the present Grand Lodge of England indebted for
its existence. A sketch of his life, drawn from the scanty materials to be
found in Masonic records, and in the brief notices of a few of his
contemporaries, cannot fail to be interesting to the student of Masonic
history.
The Rev. John Theophilus
Desaguliers, LL.D., F.R.S., was born on March 12, 1683, at Rochelle, in
France. He was the son of a French Protestant clergyman; and, his father
having removed to England as a refugee on the revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, he was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he took lessons of the
celebrated Keill in experimental philosophy. In 1719 he received the Degree of
Master of Arts, and in the same year succeeded Doctor Keill as a lecturer on
experimental philosophy at Hert Hall (now Hertford College). In the year 1713
he removed to Westminster, where he continued his course of lectures, being
the first one, it is said, who ever lectured upon physical science in the
metropolis. At this time he attracted the notice and secured the friendship of
Sir Isaac Newton. His reputation as a philosopher obtained for him a
Fellowship in the Royal Society. He was also about this time admitted to
clerical orders, and appointed by the Duke of Chandos his Chaplain, who also
presented him to the living of Whitchurch. In 1718 he received from the
University of Oxford the degree of Doctor of Civil Law, and was presented by
the Earl of Sunderland to a living in Norfolk, which he afterward exchanged
for one in Essex. He maintained, however, his residence in London, where he
continued to deliver his lectures until his death in 1744.
His contributions to science
consist of a Treatise on the Construction of Chimneys translated from the
French, and published in 1716; A System of Experimental Philosophy, of which a
second edition was issued in 1719; .4 Course of Experimental Philosophy, in
two volumes, published in 1734; and in 1735 he edited an edition of Gregory's
Elements of Catoptrics and Dioptrics. He also translated from the Latin
Gravesandes Mathematical Elements of Natural Philosophy.
In the clerical profession he
seems not to have been an ardent worker, and his theological labors were
confined to the publication of a single sermon unrepentance. He was in fact
more distinguished as a scientist than as a clergyman, and Priestly calls him
"an indefatigable experimental philosopher."
It is, however, as a Freemason
that Doctor Desaguliers will most attract our attention. But nothing is known
as to his connection with Freemasonry until 1719, when he was elevated to the
throne of the Grand Lodge, succeeding George Payne, and being thus the third
Grand Master after the revival. He paid much attention to the interests of the
Fraternity, and so elevated the character of the Order, that the records of
the Grand Lodge show that during his administration several of the older
Brethren who had hitherto neglected the Craft resumed their visits to the
Lodges, and many noblemen were initiated into the Institution.
Doctor Desaguliers was
peculiarly zealous in the investigation and collection of the old records of
the society, and to him we are principally indebted for the preservation of
the Charges of a Freemason and the preparation of the General Regulations,
which are found in the first edition of the Constitutions; which, although
attributed to Doctor Anderson, were undoubtedly compiled under the supervision
of Desaguliers. Anderson, we suppose, did the work, while Desaguliers
furnished much of the material and the thought. One of the first controversial
works in favor of Freemasonry, namely, A Detection of Dr. Plots' Account of
the Freemasons, was also attributed to his pen; but he is said to have
repudiated the credit of its authorship, of which indeed the paper furnishes
no internal evidence.
In 1721 he delivered before
the Grand Lodge what the records call "an eloquent oration about Masons and
Masonry." It does not appear that it was ever published, at least no copy of
it is extant, although Kloss puts the title at the head of his Catalogue of
Masonic Orations. It is indeed, the first Masonic address of which we have any
notice, and would be highly interesting, because it would give us, in all
probability, as Kloss remarks, the views of the Freemasons of that day in
reference to the design of the Institution.
After his retirement from the
office of Grand Master, in 1720, Desaguliers was three times appointed Deputy
Grand Master: in 1723, by the Duke of Wharton; in June of the same year, by
the Earl of Dalkeith; in 1725, by Lord Paisley; and during this period of
service he did many things for the benefit of the Craft; among others,
initiating that scheme of charity which was subsequently developed in what is
now known in the Grand Lodge of England as the Fund of Benevolence.
After this, Doctor Desaguliers
passed over to the Continent, and resided for a few years in Holland. In 1731
he was at The Hague, and presided as Worshipful Master of a Lodge organized
under a special Dispensation for the purpose of initiating and passing the
Duke of Lorraine, who was subsequently Grand Duke of Tuscany, and then Emperor
of Austria as well as of Germany. The Duke was, during the same year, made a
Master Mason in England.
On his return to England,
Desaguliers was considered, from his position in Freemasonry, as the most
fitting person to confer the Degrees on the Prince of Wales, who was
accordingly entered, passed, and raised in an Occasional Lodge, held on two
occasions at Kew, over which Doctor Desaguliers presided as Master.
Doctor Desaguliers was very
attentive to all his Masonic duties, and punctual in his attendance on the
Communications of the Grand Lodge. His last recorded appearance by name is on
the 5th of February, 1742, but a few years before his death.
Of Desaguliers' Masonic and
personal character, Doctor Oliver gives, from tradition, the following
description:
There were many traits in his
character that redound to his immortal praise. He was a grave man in private
life, almost approaching to austerity; but he could relax in the private
recesses of a Tyled Lodge, and in company with brothers and fellows where the
ties of social intercourse are not particularly stringent. He considered the
proceedings of the Lodge as strictly confidential; and being persuaded that
his brothers by initiation actually occupied the same position as brothers by
blood, he was undisguisedly free and familiar in the mutual interchange of
Unrestrained courtesy. In the Lodge he was jocose and free-hearted, sang his
song, and had no objection to his share of the bottle, although one of the
most learned and distinguished men of his day (see Revelations of a Square,
page 10).
In 1713, Desaguliers had
married a daughter of William Pudsey, Esq., by whom he had two sons Alexander,
who was 3 clergyman, and Thomas, who went into the army, and became a colonel
of artillery and an equerry to George III.
The latter days of Doctor
Desaguliers are said to have been clouded with sorrow and poverty. De Feller,
in the Biographic Universelle, says that he became insane, dressing sometimes
as a harlequin, and sometimes as a clown, and that in one of these fits of
insanity he died. Cawthorn, in a poem entitled The Vanity of Human Enjoyments,
intimates, in the following lines, that Desaguliers was in very necessitous
circumstances at the time of his death:
How poor, neglected
Desaguliers fell!
How he who taught two gracious kings to view
All Boyle ennobled and all Bacon knew,
Died in a cell. without a friend to save
Without a guinea, and without a grave.
But the accounts of the French
biographer and the English poet are most probably both apocryphal, or, at
least, much exaggerated; for Nichols, who knew him personally, and has given a
fine portrait of him in the ninth volume of his Literary Anecdotes, says that
he died on February 29, 1744, at the Bedford Coffee House, and was buried in
the Savoy.
To few Freemasons of the
present day, except to those who have made Freemasonry a subject of especial
study, is the name of Desaguliers very familiar.
But it is well they should
know that to him, perhaps, more than to any other man, are we indebted for the
present existence of Freemasonry as a living institution, for it was his
learning and social position that gave a standing to the Institution, which
brought to its support noblemen and men of influence, so that the
insignificant assemblage of four London Lodges at the Apple-Tree Tavern has
expanded into an association which now shelters the entire civilized world.
And the moving spirit of all this was John Theophilus Desaguliers.
The sounds in the French name
Desaguliers as pronounced by Brother McClenachan will be found in the list of
words printed at the end of the second volume of this work. A few comments may
be made here upon the matter. All that can well be done is to indicate
accepted custom. Doctor E. B. de Sauzé, the leading American authority on
modern languages, prefers the following from a French point of view: De, as in
desecrate; sa, as za, the short a as in lateral; gu, as gu, the French or
German u (the sound best imitated by shaping the lips as if to whistle and
then uttering the u); li, as in lid or lit, and ers, as the French é, shorter
than the first e in desecrate. The reader will note that the final letters rs
are not pronounced. Another and a fairly common pronunciation of the name
among English-speaking Brethren is heard thus: Des, as in days or pays; ag, as
in lag or tags u, as in mute or lute; li, as in lid or lit, and ers, as in
pears or bears. A French naturalist of the same name is listed with the
indicated pronunciation in Spiers' and Surenne's Dictionary (page 175) and as
nearly as we can reproduce the sounds by English words may be illustrated
thus: De, as in pay and way; sa, as 20 in zone; gu, as in gulf or gum, the
French or German u sound being understood; li, as in lit or listen, and ers,
as the a in cat or mat. Practically there is no tonic accent in French beyond
a slight stress on the final syllable pronounced.
*
DESERT
The outer court of a tent in
the Order of Ishmael, or of Esau and Reconciliation.
*
DES ETANGS, NICHOLAS CHARLES
A Masonic reformer, who was
born at Allichamps, in France, on the 7th of September, 1766, and died at
Paris on the 6th of May, 1847. He was initiated, in 1797, into Freemasonry in
the Lodge l'Heureuse Rencontre, meaning in French of the Happy Meeting. He
subsequently removed to Paris, where, in 1822, he became the Master of the
Lodge of Trinosophs, which position he held for nine years. Thinking that the
ceremonies of the Masonic system in France did not respond to the dignity of
the Institution, but were gradually being diverted from its original design,
he determined to commence a reform in the recognized dogmas, legends, and
symbols, which he proposed to present in new forms more in accord with the
manners of the present age.
There was, therefore, very
little of conservation in the system of Des Etangs. It was, however, adopted
for a time by many of the Parisian Lodges, and Des Etangs was loaded with
honors. His Rite embraced five Degrees, viz., 1, 2, 3, the Symbolic Degrees;
4, the Rose Croix Rectified; 5, the Grand Elect Knight Kadosh. He gave to his
system the title of Freemasonry Restored to Its True Principles, and fully
developed it in his work entitled veritable Lien; des Peuples, meaning True
Bond of the Peoples, which was first published in 1823. Des Etangs also
published in 1825 a very able reply to the calumnies of the Abbé Barruel,
under the title of La Franc-Maçonnerie justifiée de toutes les calomnies
répandues contre elle, meaning Freemasonry justified against all the
falsehoods spread against her. In the system of Des Etangs, the Builder of the
Temple is supposed to symbolize the Good Genius of Humanity destroyed by
Ignorance, Falsehood, and Ambition; and hence the Third Degree is supposed to
typify the battle between Liberty and Despotism in the same spirit, the
justness of destroying impious kings is considered the true dogma of the Rose
Croix. In fact, the tumults of the French Revolution, in which Des Etangs took
no inconsiderable share, had infected his spirit with a political temperament,
which unfortunately appears too prominently in many portions of his Masonic
system. Notwithstanding that he incorporated two of the high Degrees into his
Rite, Des Etangs considered the three Symbolic Degrees as the only legitimate
Freemasonry, and says that all other Degrees have been instituted by various
associations and among different peoples on occasions when it was desired to
revenge a death, to re-establish a prince, or to give success to a sect.
*
DESIGN OF FREEMASONRY
The purpose of Freemasonry is
neither charity nor almsgiving, nor the cultivation of the social sentiment;
for both of these are merely incidental to its organization; but it is the
search after truth, and that truth is the unity of God and the immortality of
the soul. The various Degrees or grades of initiation represent the various
stages through which the human mind passes, and the many difficulties which
men, individually or collectively, must encounter in their progress from
ignorance to the acquisition of this truth.
*
DESTRUCTION OF THE TEMPLE
The Temple of King Solomon was
destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Chaldees, during the reign of
Zedekiah, 3416 A.M., 588 B.C. and just four hundred and sixteen years after
its dedication. Although the city was destroyed and the Temple burnt, the
Masonic legends state that the deep foundations of the latter were not
affected. Nebuchadnezzar caused the city of Jerusalem to be leveled to the
ground, the royal palace to be burned, the Temple to be pillaged as well as
destroyed, and the inhabitants to be carried captive to Babylon. These events
are symbolically detailed in the Royal Arch, and, in allusion to them, the
passage of the Book of Chronicles which records them is appropriately
considered during the ceremonies of this part of the Degree.
*
DETACHED DEGREES
Side or honorary Degrees
outside of the regular succession of Degrees of a Rite, and which, being
conferred without the authority of a supreme controlling Body, are said to be
to the side of or detached from the regular regime or customary work. The word
detached is peculiar to the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Thus, in the
Circular of the Southern Supreme Council, October 10, 1802, is the following:
"Besides those degrees which are in regular succession, most of the Inspectors
are in possession of a number of detached degrees, given in different parts of
the world, and which they generally communicate, free of expense, to those
brethren who are high enough to understand them."
*
DEUCHAR CHARTERS
Warrants, some of which are
still in existence in Scotland, and which are used to authorize the working of
the Knights Templar Degree by certain Encampments in that country. They were
designated Deuchar Charters, on account Alexander Deuchar, an engraver and
heraldic writer, having been the chief promoter of the Grand Conclave and its
first Grand Master. To his exertions, also, the Supreme Grand Royal Arch
Chapter of Scotland may be said to have owed its origin.
He appears to have become
acquainted with Knight Templarism early in the nineteenth century through
Brethren who had been dubbed under a Warrant emanating from Dublin, which was
held by Fratres serving in the Shropshire Militia. This corps was quartered in
Edinburgh in 1798; and in all probability was through the instrumentality of
its members that the first Grand Assembly of Knights Templar was first set up
in Edinburgh. Subsequently, this gave place to the Grand Assembly of High
Knights Templar in Edinburgh, working under a Charter, No. 31, of the Early
Grand Encampment of Ireland, of which in 1807 Deuchar was Grand Master. The
Deuchar Charters authorized Encampments to install "Knights Templar and
Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem" one condition on which these Warrants were
held being "that no communion or intercourse shall be maintained with any
Chapter or Encampment, or body assuming that name, holding meetings of Knights
Templar under a Master Mason's Charter." In 1837 the most of these Warrants
were forfeited, and the Encampments erased from the roll of the Grand
Conclave, on account of not making the required returns.
*
DEUS MEUMQUE JUS
Latin, meaning God and my
right. The motto of the Thirty-third Degree of the Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite, and hence adopted as that also of the Supreme Council of the
Rite. It is a Latin translation of the motto of the royal arms of England,
which is the French expression Dieu et mon droit, and concerning which we have
the following tradition: Richard Coeur de Leon, besieging Gisors, in Normandy,
in 1198, gave, as a parole or watchword, Dieu et man droit, because Philip
Augustus, King of France, had, without right, taken that city, which then
belonged to England. Richard, having been victorious with that righteous
parole, hence adopted it as his motto; and it was afterward marshaled in the
arms of England.
*
DEVELOPMENT
The ancients often wrote their
books on parchment, which was made up into a roll, hence called a volume, from
cohere, the Latin word meaning to roll up. Thus, he who read the book
commenced by unrolling it, a custom still practiced by the Jews in reading
their Sacred Law, and it was not until the whole volume had been unrolled and
read that he became master of its contents. Now, in the Latin language, to
unfold or to unroll was devolvere, whence we get our English word to develop.
The figurative signification thus elicited from etymology may be well applied
to the idea of the development of Freemasonry. The system of Speculative
Freemasonry is a volume closely folded from unlawful eyes, and he who would
understand its true intent and meaning must follow the old proverb, and
"commence at the beginning." There is no royal road of arriving at this
knowledge. It can be attained only by laborious research. The student must
begin as an Apprentice, by studying the rudiments that are unfolded on its
first page. Then as a Fellow Craft still more of the precious writing is
unrolled, and he acquires new ideas. As a Master he continues the operation,
and possesses himself of additional material for thought.
But it is not until the entire
volume lies unrolled before him, in the highest Degree, and the whole
speculative system of its philosophy is Lying outspread before him, that he
can pretend to claim a thorough comprehension of its plan. It is then only
that he has solved the problem, and can exclaim, "The end has crowned the
work."
The superficial Freemason who
looks only on the ornamental covering of the roll knows nothing of its
contents. Freemasonry is a scheme of development; and he who has learned
nothing of its design, and who is daily adding nothing to his stock of Masonic
ideas, is simply one who is not unrolling the parchment. It is a custom of the
Jews on their Sabbath, in the synagogue, that a member should pay for the
privilege of unrolling the Sacred Law. So, too, the Freemason, who would
uphold the law of his Institution, must pay for the privilege, not in base
coin, but in labor and research, studying its principles, searching out its
design, and imbibing all of its symbolism; and the payment thus made will
purchase a rich jewel.
*
DEVICE
A term in heraldry signifying
any emblem used to represent a family, person, nation, or society, and to
distinguish such from any other. The device is usually accompanied with a
suitable motto applied in a figurative sense, and its essence consists in a
metaphorical similitude between the thing representing and that represented.
Thus, the device of a lion represents the courage of the person bearing it.
The oak is the device of strength; the palm, of victory; the sword, of honor;
and the eagle, of sovereign power. The several sections of the Masonic
sodality are distinguished by appropriate devices.
1. Ancient Craft Masonry.
Besides the arms of Speculative Freemasonry, which are described in this work
under the appropriate head, the most common device is a square and compass.
2. Royal Arch Masonry. The device is a triple tau within a triangle.
3. Knight Templarism. The ancient device, which was borne on the seals and
banners of the primitive Order, was two knights riding on one horse, in
allusion to the vow of poverty taken by the founders. The modern device of
Masonic Templarism is a cross pattée.
4. Scottish Rite Masonry. The device is a double headed eagle crowned. holding
in his claws a sword.
5. Royal and select Masters. The device is a trowel suspended within a
triangle, in which the allusion is to the tetragrammaton symbolized by the
triangle or delta and the workmen at the first Temple symbolized by the trowel
6. Rose Croix Masonry. The device is a cross charged with a rose- at its foot
an eagle and a pelican.
7. Knight of the Sun. This old Degree of philosophical Freemasonry has for its
device rays of light issuing frown a triangle inscribed within a circle of
darkness, which "teaches us," says Oliver, " that when man was enlightened by
the Deity with reason, he became enabled to penetrate the darkness and
obscurity which ignorance and superstition had spread abroad to allure men to
their destruction."
Each of these devices is
accompanied by a motto which properly forms a part of it. These mottoes will
be found under the head of Motto.
The Italian heralds have paid
peculiar attention to the subject of devices, and have established certain
laws for their construction, which are generally recognized in other
countries. These laws are: That there be nothing extravagant or monstrous in
the figures.. That figures be never jointed together which have no relation or
affinity with one another. That the human body should never be used. That the
figures should be few in number, and that the motto should refer to the
device, and express with it a common idea. According to P. Bouhours, the
figure or emblem was called the today, and the motto the soul of the device.
*
DEVOIR
The gilds or separate
communities in the system of French compagnonage are called devoirs (see
Compagnonage).
*
DEVOIR OF A KNIGHT
The original meaning of devoir
is duty; and hence, in the language of chivalry, a knight's devoir
comprehended the performance of all those duties to which he was obligated by
the laws of knighthood and the vows taken at his creation. These were: The
defense of widows and orphans, the maintenance of justice, and the protection
of the poor and weak against the oppressions of the strong and great. Thus, in
one of Beaumont and Fletcher's plays (knight of the Burning Pestle. Act II,
Scene 1), the knight says to the lady Madame if any service or devoir of a
poor errant knight may right your wrongs, command it, I am pressed to give you
succor, For to that holy end I bear my armor. The devoir of a Knight Templar
was originally to protect pilgrims on their visit to the Holy Land, and to
defend the holy places. The devoir of a modern Knight Templar is to defend
innocent virgins, destitute widows, helpless orphans, and the Christian
religion.
*
DEVOTIONS
The prayers in a Commandery of
Knights Templar are technically called the devotions of the knights.
*
DEW DROP LECTURE
An eloquent and much admired
elaboration of the monitorial charge appropriate for the Fellow Craft. This
fine composition has been ascribed to the gifted General Albert Pike.
Geometry, the first and noblest of sciences, is the basis Upon which the
superstructure of Freemasonry is erected. Regarding man as a rational and
intelligent being, capable of enjoyment and pleasure to an extent limited only
by the acquisition of useful knowledge, our Order points him to the studio of
the Liberal Arts and Sciences and to the possession of knowledge as the most
befitting and proper occupation for the God-like endowments with which he is
gifted. Indeed, all who frequent our Masonic Temple, are charged to labor
faithfully in the wide and unbounded field of human improvement, from which
they are assured of reaping a most glorious harvest, a harvest rich in
happiness to the whole family of man, and in manifestation of the goodness of
God. Your attention is especially directed to the science of Geometry. no
royal road, is true, but to one prepared with an outfit it must prove more
attractive than palace walks by regal taste adorned.
The ancient philosophers
placed such a high estimate upon this science that all who frequented the
groves of the Sacred Academy, were compelled to explore its heavenly paths,
and no one whose mind was unexpended be its precepts was intrusted with the
instruction of the young. Even Plato. justly deemed the first of the
philosophers when asked as to the probable occupation of Deity, replied, "He
geometries continually."
If we consider the symmetry
and order which govern all the works of creation, we must admit that Geometry
pervades the universe. If, by the aid of the telescope, we bring the planets
within the range of our observation and by the microscope, view particles too
minute for the eye, unaided, to behold, we find them all pursuing the several
objects of their creation, in accordance with the fixed plan of the Almighty.
By Geometry we may curiously
trace nature through her various windings to her most concealed recesses. By
it we discover how the planets move in their respective orbits and demonstrate
their various revolutions; by it we account for the return of the seasons and
the variety of scenes which each season displays to the discerning eye; by it
we discover the power, wisdom and goodness of the Grand Artificer of the
Universe. and view with delight the proportions which connect the vast
machine. Numberless worlds are around us, all framed by the same Divine
Artist, which roll through the vast expanse and are all governed by the same
unerring law of nature. Is there not more truth than fiction in the thought of
the ancient philosopher, that God geometries continually?
By geometry He rounds the dew
drop- points the pyramidal icicle that hangs from thatch-bound roof; bends
into a graceful curve the foaming cataract; paints His bow of beauty upon the
canvas of a summer shower; assimilates the sugar to the diamond, and in the
fissures of the earth-bound rocks, forms gorgeous caverns, thickset with
starry gems. Is it He taught the bee to store its honey in prismatic cells;
the wild goose to range her fight, and the noble eagle to wheel and dart upon
its prey, and the wakesome lark, God's earliest worshiper, to hymn its matin
song in spiral flight. By it He forms the tender lens of the delicate eye,
rounds the blushing cheek of beauty, curves the ruby lip and fashions the
swelling breast that throbs in unison with a gushing heart. By it he paints
the cheek of autumn's mellow fruit, forms in molds of graceful symmetry the
gentle dove, marks the myriad circles on the peacock's gaudy train and decks
the plumage of ten thousand warblers of His praise that animate the woody
shade. By it He fashions the golden carp, decks the silvery perch, forms all
fish of every fin and tribe that course the majestic ocean, cut the placid
lake or swim in gentle brook. Nay, more, even the glassy element in which they
dwell, when by gentle zephyrs stirred, sends its chasing waves in graceful
curves by God's own finger traced in parallel above, beneath, around us, all
the works of His hands, animate and inanimate, but prove that God geometries
continually.
But if man would witness the
highest evidence of geometer leal perfection, let him step out of the rude
construction of his own hands and view the wide overspreading canopy of the
stars, whether fixed as centers of vast systems or all noiselessly pursuing
their geometrical paths in accordance with the never-changing laws of nature.
Nay more, the vast fields of illimitable space are all formed of an infinitude
of circles traced by the compass of the Almighty Architect, whose every work
is set by the Level, adjusted by the Plumb, and perfected by the Square. Do
this, my Brother, and you must admits with Plato, that God geometrizes
continually, and be assured with Job, that He who stretcheth the earth upon
emptiness and fixeth the foundation thereof upon nothing, so it cannot be
moved, can bind the sweet influence of Pleiades or loose the bands of Orion.
A survey of Nature, and the
observation of her beautiful proportions, first determined man to imitate the
Divine plan, and study symmetry and order. This gave rise to societies, and
birth to every useful art. The architect began to design, and the plans which
he laid down, being improved by experience and time, have produced works which
are the admiration of every age. The lapse of time, the ruthless hand of
ignorance, and the devastations of war, have laid waste and destroyed many
valuable monuments of antiquity on which the utmost exertions of human genius
have been employed. Even the temple of Solomon, so spacious and magnificent,
and constructed by so many artists, escaped not the unsparing ravages of
barbarous force. Freemasonry, notwithstanding, has still survived. The
attentive ear receives the sound from the instructive tongue, and the
mysteries of Freemasonry are safely Lodged in the repository of faithful
breasts. Tools and instruments of architecture, and symbolic emblems, most
expressive, are selected by the Fraternity to imprint on the mind wise and
serious truths; and thus, through a succession of ages, are transmitted,
unimpaired, the most excellent tenets of our Institution.
*
DIALECTICS
That branch of logic which
teaches the rules and modes of reasoning. Dialecticke and dialecticus are used
as corruptions of the Latin dialectica in some of the old manuscript
Constitutions, instead of logic, in the enumeration of the seven liberal arts
and sciences.
*
DIAMOND
A precious stone; in Hebrew,
om. It was the third stone in the second row of the high Priest's breastplate,
according to the enumeration of Aben Ezra, and corresponded to the tribe of
Zebulun. But it is doubtful whether the diamond was known in the time of
Moses; and if it was. its great value and its insusceptibility to the
impression of a graving-tool would have rendered it totally unfit as a stone
in the breastplate. The Vulgate more properly gives the jasper.
*
DIDACTICAL
Hemming is credited with
naming the fourth section of the first Masonic lecture, didactical, perceptive
or instructive and he says that "'the virtuous Mason, after he has enlightened
his own mind by those sage and moral precepts, is the more ready to enlighten
and enlarge the understanding of others."
*
DIDEROT, DENIS
French encyclopedist. Born
October 5, 1713; died July 30, 1784. Credited with an address at Paris in 1778
before the famous Lodge of Nine Sisters, mentioned in the correspondence,
published at Paris in 1812, between Grimm and Diderot. But the Histoire de la
Franc-Masonnerie Française (Albert Lantoine, 1925, Paris, page 360) says
Diderot was not a Freemason.
*
DIESEA
A term used by the Druids to
designate the circumambulation around the sacred cairns, and is derived from
two words signifying on the right of the sun, because the circumambulation was
always in imitation of the course of the sun, with the right hand next to the
cairn or altar (see Circumambulation and Deiseil).
*
DIEU ET MON DROIT
French, meaning God and my
Right (see Deus Meunque Jus).
*
DIEU LE VEUT
A French expression for God
wills it. The war-cry of the opal Crusaders, and hence adopted as a motto in
the Degrees of Templarism.
*
DIGNITARIES
The Master, the Wardens, the
Orator, and the Secretary in a French Lodge are called dignitaries. The
corresponding officers in the Grand Orient are called Grand Dignitaries. In
English and American Masonic language the term is usually restricted to high
officers of the Grand Lodge
*
DIMIT
In Brother Mackey's opinion
this is a modern, American, and wholly indefensible corruption of the
technical word Demit. As the use of this form is very prevalent among American
Masonic writers, he considered it proper that we should inquire which is the
correct word, Demit or Dimit, and so he continues thus:
The Masonic world had been
content, in its technical language, to use the word demit. But within a few
years, a few admirers of neologisms—men who are always ready to believe that
what is old cannot be good, and that new fashions are always the best—have
sought to make a change in the well-established word, and, by altering the e
in the first syllable into an i, they make another word dimit, which they
assert is the right one. It is simply a question of orthography, and must be
settled first by reference to usage, and then to etymology, to discover which
of the words sustains, by its derivation, the true meaning which is intended
to be conveyed.
It is proper, however, to
premise that although in the seventeenth century Sir Thomas Browne used the
word DEBIT as a verb, meaning to depress, and Bishop Hall used dimit as
signifying to send away, yet both words are omitted by all the early
lexicographers. Neither of them is to be found in Phillips, in 1706, nor in
Blunt, in 1707, nor in Bailey, in 1739. Johnson and Sheridan, of a still later
date, have inserted in their dictionaries DEBIT, but not dignity but Walker.
Richardson, and Webster give both words, but only as verbs. The verb to DEBIT
or to dimit may be found, but never the noun a DEBIT or a dimit. As a noun
substantive, this word, however it may be spelled, is unknown to the general
language, and is strictly a technical expression peculiar to Freemasonry. As a
Masonic technicality we must, then, discuss it. And, first, as to its meaning:
Doctor Oliver, who omits dimit
in his Dictionary of Symbolical Masonry, defines remit thus: "A Mason is said
to DEBIT from the Order when he withdraws from all connection with it." It
will be seen that he speaks of it here only as a verb, and makes no reference
to its use as a noun. Macoy, in his Cyclopaedia, omits DEBIT, but defines
dimit thus: "From the Latin dimitto, to permit to go. The act of withdrawing
from membership." To say nothing of the incorrectness of this definition, to
which reference will hereafter be made, there is in it a violation of the
principles of language which is worthy of note. No rule is better settled than
that which makes the verb and the noun derived from it have the same relative
signification. Thus, to discharge means to dismiss; a discharge means a
dismission; to approve means to express liking; an approval means an
expression of liking; to remit means to relax; a remission means a relaxation,
and so with a thousand other instances. Now, according to this rule, if to
demit means to permit to go, then a remit should mean a permission to go. The
withdrawal is something subsequent and Consequent, but it may ever take place.
According to Macoy's
definition of the verbs the granting of a limit does not necessarily lead to
the conclusion that the Freemason who received it has left the Lodge. He has
only been permitted to do so. This is contrary to the universally accepted
definition of the word. Accordingly, when he comes to define the word as a
noun, he gives it the true meaning, which, however, does not agree with his
previous definition as a verb.
To instituting the inquiry
which of these two words is the true one, we must first look to the general
usage of Masonic writers; for, after all, the rule of Horace holds good, that
in the use of words we must be governed by custom or usage, whose arbitrary
sway.
Words and the forms of
language must obey.
If we shall find that the
universal usage of Masonic writers until a comparatively recent date has been
to employ the form demit, then we are bound to believe that it is the correct
form, notwithstanding a few writers have more recently sought to intrude the
form dimit upon us. Now, how stands the case? The first time that we find the
word demit used is in the second edition of Anderson's Constitutions, 1738,
page 153. There it is said that on the 25th of November, 1723, "it was agreed
that if a Master of a particular Lodge is deposed, or demits, the Senior
Warden shall forthwith fill the Master's Chair."
The word continued in use as a
technical word in the Freemasonry of England for many years. In the editions
of the Constitution published in 1756, page 311, the passage just quoted is
again recited, and the word DEBIT is again employed in the fourth edition of
the Constitutions published in 1767, page 345. In the second edition of
Dermott's Ahiman Rezon, published in 1764, page 52, and in the third edition,
published in 1778, page 58, the word DEBIT is employed. Oliver, it will be
seen, uses it in his Dictionary, published in 1853. But the word seems to have
become obsolete in England, and to resign is now constantly used by English
Masonic writers in the place of to DEBIT.
In America, however, the word
has been and continues to be in universal use, and has always been spelled,
until recently, DEBIT. Thus we find it used by Tannehill, Manual, 1845, page
59; Morris, Code of Masonic Law, 1856, page 289; Hubbard, in 1851; Chase,
Digest, 1859, page 104; Mitchell, Masonic History, volume ii, pages 556, 592,
and by all the Grand Lodges whose proceedings Brother Mackey examined up to
the year 1860. On the contrary, the word dimit is of recent origin. Usage,
therefore, both English and American, is clearly in favor of demit, and dimit
must be considered as an interloper, and ought to be consigned to the tomb of
the Capulets. And now we are to inquire whether this usage is sustained by the
principles of etymology. First, let us obtain a correct definition of the
word. To demit, in Masonic language, means simply to resign. The Freemason who
demits from his Lodge resigns from it. The word is used in the exact sense,
for instance, in the Constitution of the Grand Lodge of Wisconsin, where it is
said: "No brother shall be allowed to demit from any Lodge unless for the
purpose of uniting with some other." That is to say: "No brother shall be
allowed to resign from any Lodge."
Now what are the respective
meanings of DEBIT and dimit in ordinary language? There the words are found to
be entirely different in signification. To DEBIT is derived first from the
Latin demittere through the French demettre. In Latin the prefixed particle de
has the weight of down; added to the verb mittere, to send, it signifies to
let down from an elevated position to a lower. Thus, Caesar used it in this
very sense, when, in describing the storming of Avaricum (Commentary de bello
Gallico, vii, 28), he says that the Roman soldiers did not let themselves
down, that is, descend from the top of the wall to the level ground. The
French, looking to this reference to a descent from a higher to a lower
position, made their verb se demettre, used in a reflective sense, signify to
Olive up a post, office, or occupation, that is to say, to resign it. And
thence the English use of the word is reducible, which makes to demit signify
Go region. We have another word in our language also derived from demettre,
and in which the same idea of resignation is apparent. It is the word demise,
which was originally used only to express a Loyal death. The old maxim was
that "the king never dies." So, instead of saying the death of the king, they
said the demise of the king, thereby meaning his resignation of the crown to
his successor. The word is now applied more generally, and we speak of the
demise of Pitt, or any other person. To dimit is derived from the Latin
dimittere. The prefixed particle di or dis has the effect of off from, and
hence dimittere means to send away. Thus, Terence uses it to express the
meaning of dismissing or sending away an army.
Both words are now obsolete in
the English language. They were formerly used, but in the different senses
already indicated. Thus, Hollinshed employs demit to signify a surrender,
yielding up, or resignation of a franchise. Bishop Hall uses dimit to signify
a sending away of a servant by his master.
Demit, as a noun, is not known
in good English; the correlative nouns of the verbs to demit and to dimit are
demission and dimission. A demit is altogether a Masonic technicality, and is,
moreover, an Americanism of recent usage. It is then evident that to demit is
the proper word, and that to use to dimit is to speak and write incorrectly.
When a Freemason demits from a Lodge, we mean that he residers from a Lodge,
because to demit means to resign. But what does anyone mean when he says that
a Freemason dimits from a Lodge?
To dimit means, as we have
seen, to send away; therefore he dimits from the Lodge is equivalent to saying
he sends away from the Lodge, which of course is not only bad English, but
sheer nonsense.
If dimit is to be used at all,
as it is an active, transitive verb, it must be used only in that form, and we
must either say that a Lodge dimits a Mason, or that a Mason is dimitted by
his Lodge. Brother Mackey believed he had discovered the way in which this
blunder first arose. Rob Morris (Code of Masonic Law, page 289) has the
following passage:
A demit, technically considered, is the act of withdrawing and applies to the
Lodge and not to the individual. A Mason cannot demit in the strict sense,
buff the Lodge may demit (dismiss) him. It is astonishing how the author of
this passage could have crowded into so brief a space so many violations of
grammar, law, and common sense. First, to demit means to withdraw, and then
this withdrawal is made the act of the Lodge and not of the individual, as if
the Lodge withdrew the member instead of the member withdrawing himself. And
immediately afterward, seeing the absurdity of this doctrine, and to make the
demission the act of the Lodge, he changes the signification of the word, and
makes to demit mean to dismiss. Certainly it is impossible to discuss the law
of Masonic demission when such contrary meanings are given to the word in one
and the same paragraph.
But certain wiseacres,
belonging probably to that class who believe that there is always improvement
in change, seizing upon this latter definition o f Morris, that to demit meant
to dismiss, and seeing that this was a meaning which the word never had, and,
from its derivation from demittere, never could have changed the word from
demit to dimit, which really does have the meaning of sending away or
dismissing. But as the Masonic act of demission does not mean a dismissal from
the Lodge, because that would be an expulsion, but simply a resignation, the
word dimit cannot properly be applied to the act.
A Freemason demits from the
Lodge; he resigns. He takes out his demit, a strictly technical expression and
altogether confined to this country; he asks for and receives an acceptance of
his resignation.
Thus far we have followed
Brother Mackey who went into this matter in considerable detail. An equally
impressive showing is to be found in the Builder (Volume v, page 308), where
Brother C. C. Hunt discusses the same question. At the end of his article the
editor, Brother H. L. Haywood, said, "A study of forty-nine codes of the Grand
Lodges of the United States reveals the fact that forty-one used he word dimit
while but eight used demit.
Brother Hunt (page 29, volume
vi, Builder) comments upon this note, in brief, as follows: Dimit came into
the English language through church usage, where a priest would be sent from
one diocese to another. The bishop gave him a dimit, virtually an order to go.
The priest had to accept dismissal. This word is obsolete since letter of
dismissal, or dimissory letter takes its place. Demit came into the language
from the same Latin word, but from the late Latin and the French, and meaning
a voluntary resignation. It so came to be used by Freemasons, the thought
being that a member of a Lodge, in good standing, had an absolute right to
relinquish his membership and obtain a certificate to that effect. Until
comparatively recently the word used was demit. History of the word has been
lost and ecclesiastical rather than the Masonic sense attached to the word by
those that use dimit.
The Lexicographer of the
Literary Digest (July 9, 1927, page 68) has this to say of the distinction
between demit and dimit: As a verb, the word demit designates to give up; lay
down, or resign as an appointment; to drop or east down; depress. As a noun,
it means a letter of dismissal, specifically, a recommendation given to a
person removing from one Masonic Lodge to another. In the sense of to release
or dimiss, demit is obsolete. The verb dimit means to permit or to go away;
dismiss; to send or give forth; to grant or lease (see Demit).
*
DIOCESAN
The Fifth Degree of Bahrdt's
German Union
*
DIONYSIAN ARCHITECTS
The priests of Bacchus, or, as
the Greeks called him, Dionysus, having devoted themselves to architectural
pursuits, established about 1000 years before the Christian era a society or
fraternity of builders in Asia Minor, which is styled by the ancient writers
the Fraternity of Dionystan Architects, and to this society was exclusively
confined the privilege of erecting temples and other public buildings.
The members of the Fraternity
of Dionysian Architects were linked together by the secret ties of the
Dionysian mysteries, into which they had all been initiated. Thus constituted,
the Fraternity was distinguished by many peculiarities that strikingly
assimilate it to our Order. In the exercise of charity, the more opulent were
sacredly bound to provide for the exigencies of the poorer brethren." For the
facilities of labor and government, they were divided into communities called
ouvoud each of which was governed by a Master and Wardens.
They held a general assembly
or grand festival once a year, which was solemnized with great pomp and
splendor. They employed in their ceremonial observances many of the implements
which are still to be found among Freemasons, and used, like them, a universal
language, by which one Brother could distinguish another in the dark as well
as in the light, and which served to unite the members scattered over India,
Persia, and Syria, into one common brotherhood.
The existence of this Order in
Tyre, at the time of the building of the Temple, is universally admitted; and
Hiram, the widow's son, to whom Solomon entrusted the superintendence of the
workmen, as an inhabitant of Tyre, and as a skillful architect and cunning and
curious workman, was, very probably, one of its members. Hence, we may
legitimately suppose that the Dionysians were sent by Hiram, King of Tyre, to
assist King Solomon in the construction of the house he was about to dedicate
to Jehovah, and that they communicated to their Jewish fellow-laborers a
knowledge of the advantages of their Fraternity, and invited them to a
participation in its mysteries and privileges. In this union, however, the
apocryphal legend of the Dionysians would naturally give way to the true
legend of the Freemasons, which was unhappily furnished by a melancholy
incident that occurred at the time.
The latter part of this
statement is, it is admitted, a mere speculation, but one that has met the
approval of Lawrie, Oliver, and our best writers; and although this connection
between the Dionysian Architects and the builders of King Solomon may not be
supported by documentary evidence, the traditional theory is at least
plausible, and offers nothing which is either absurd or impossible. If
accepted, it supplies the necessary link which connects the Pagan with the
Jewish mysteries.
The history of this
association subsequent to the Solomonic era has been detailed by Masonic
writers, who have derived their information sometimes from conjectural and
sometimes from historical authority. About 300 B.C., they were incorporated by
the kings of Pergamos at Teos, which was assigned to them as a settlement, and
where they continued for centuries as an exclusive society engaged in the
erection of works of art and the celebration of their mysteries.
Notwithstanding the edict of the Emperor Theodosius which abolished all
mystical associations, they are said to have continued their existence down to
the time of the Crusades, and during the constant communication which was kept
up between the two continents passed over from Asia to Europe, where they
became known as the Traveling Freemasons of the Middle Ages, into whose future
history they thus became merged.
*
DIONYSIAN MYSTERIES
These mysteries were
celebrated throughout Greece and Asia Minor, but principally at Athens, where
the years were numbered by them. They were instituted in honor of Baccus, or,
as the Greeks called him, Dionysus, and were introduced into Greece from
Egypt. In these mysteries, the murder of Dionysus by the Titans was
commemorated, in which legend he is evidently identified with the Egyptian
Osiris, who was slain by his brother Typhon. The aspirant, in the ceremonies
through which he passed, represented the murder of the god and his restoration
to life, which, says the Baron de Sacy (Notes on Saint-Croix, ii 86), were the
subject of allegorical explanations altogether analogous to those which were
given to the rape of Proserpine and the murder of Osiris.
The commencement of the
mysteries was signalized by the consecration of an egg, in allusion to the
mundane egg from which all things were supposed to have sprung. The candidate
having been first purified by water, and crowned with a myrtle branch, was
introduced into the vestibule, and there clothed in the sacred habiliments. He
was then delivered to the conductor, who, after the mystic warning, meaning in
English, Bygone, begone, all ye profane.' exhorted the candidate to exert all
his fortitude and courage in the dangers and trials through which he was about
to pass. He was then led through a series of dark caverns, a part of the
ceremonies which Stobaeus calls "a rude and fearful march through night and
darkness. " During this passage he was terrified by the howling of wild
beasts, and other fearful noises; artificial thunder reverberated through the
subterranean apartments, and transient flashes of lightning revealed monstrous
apparitions to his sight.
In this state of darkness and
terror he was kept for three days and nights, after which he commenced the
aphanism or mystical death of Bacchus. He was now placed on the pastos or
couch, that is, he was confined in a solitary cell, where he could reflect
seriously on the nature of the undertaking in which he was engaged. During
this time, he was alarmed with the sudden flood of waters, which was intended
to represent the deluge. Typhon, searching for Osiris, or Dionvsus, for they
are here identical, discovered the ark where Osiris had been secreted, and,
tearing it violently asunder, scattered the limbs of his victim upon the
waters. The aspirant now heard the loud lamentations which were instituted for
the death of the god.
Then commenced the search of
Rhea for the remains of Dionysus. The apartments were filled with shrieks and
groans; the initiated mingled with their howlings of despair the frantic
dances of the Corybantes; everything was a scene of distraction, until, at a
signal from the hierophant, the whole drama changed—the mourning was turned to
joy; the mangled boded was found; and the aspirant was released from his
confinement, amid the shouts of Eyprksapeu, EU7XQLPUMel x meaning in Greek, We
have found it; let us rejoice together. The candidate was nova made to descend
into the infernal regions, where he beheld the torments of the wicked and the
rewards of the virtuous.
It was now that he received
the lecture explanatory of the Rites, and was invested with the tokens which
served the initiated as a means of recognition. He then underwent a
lustration, after which he was introduced into the holy place, where he
received the name of epopt, and was fully instructed in the doctrine of the
mysteries, which consisted in a belief in the existence of one God and a
future state of rewards and punishments. These doctrines were taught by a
variety of significant symbols. After the performance of these ceremonies, the
aspirant was dismissed, and the Rites concluded with the pronunciation of the
mystic words, Konx Ompax (which see elsewhere in this work). Sainte-Croix
(Mysteries of Paganism ii, 90) says that the murder of Dionysus by the Titans
was only an allegory of the physical revolutions of the world; but these were
in part, in the ancient initiations, significant of the changes of life and
death and resurrection.
*
DIONYSUS
The Greek name of Bacchus (see
Dionysian Mysteries)
*
DIPLOMA
Literally means something
folded. From the Greek;7rXoz. The word is applied in Freemasonry to the
Certificates granted by Lodges, Chapters, and Commanderies to their members,
which should always be written on parchment. The more usual word, however, is
Certificate, which see. In the Scottish Rite they are called Patents.
*
DIRECTOR OF CEREMONIES, GRAND
An officer in the Grand Lodge of England, who has the arrangement and
direction of all processions and ceremonies of the Grand Lodge and the care of
the regalia, clothing, insignia, and jewels belonging to the Grand Lodge. His
jewel is two rods in saltire, or crossed! tied by a ribbon.
*
DIRECTORY
In German Lodges, the Master
and other officers constitute a Council of Management, under the name of
Directorium or Directory.
*
DIRECTORY, ROMAN HELVETIC
The name assumed in 1739 by
the Supreme Masonic authority at Lausanne, in Switzerland (see Switzerland).
*
DISCALCEATION, RITE OF
The ceremony of taking off the
shoes, as a token of respect, whenever we are on or about to approach holy
ground. It is referred to in Exodus (iii, 5), where the angel of the Lord, at
the burning bush, exclaims to Moses: "Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes
from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." It is
again mentioned in Joshua (v, 15), in the following words: "And the captain of
the Lord's host said unto Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot; for the
place whereon thou standest is holy." And lastly, it is alluded to in the
injunction given in Eeclesiastes (v, 1): "Keep thy foot when thou goest to the
house of God." The Rite, in fact, always was, and still is, used among the
Jews and other Oriental nations when entering their temples and other sacred
edifices. It does not seem to have been derived from the command given to
Moses; but rather to have existed as a religious custom from time immemorial,
and to have been borrowed, as Mede supposes, by the Gentiles, through
tradition, from the patriarchs. The direction of Pythagoras to his disciples
was in these words in Greek: Avvroonos AVf KQL TpoKvMeL that is, in English,
Offer sacrifice and worship with they shoes off. Justin Martyr says that those
who came to worship in the sanctuaries and temples of the Gentiles were
commanded by their priests to put off their shoes. Drusius, in his votes on
the Book of Joshua, says that among most of the Eastern nations it was a pious
duty to tread the pavement of the temple w ith unshod feet. Maimonides, the
great expounder of the Jewish aw, asserts (in the Beth Habbechirah, chapter
vii) that "it was not lawful for a man to come into the mountain of God's
house with his shoes on his feet, or with his staff, or in his working
garments, or with dust on his feet." Rabbi Solomon, commenting on the command
in Leviticus (xix, 30), "Ye shall reverence my sanctuary," makes the same
remark in relation to this custom. On this subject, Oliver (Historical
Landmarks ii, 471) observes: "Now the act of going with naked feet was always
considered a token of humility and reverence, and the priests, in the temple
worship, always officiated with feet uncovered, although it was frequently
injurious to their health." Mede quotes Zago Zaba, an Ethiopian bishop, who
was ambassador from David, King of Abyssini, to John III. of Portugal, as
saying: "We are not permitted to enter the church except barefooted." The
Mohammedans, when about to perform their devotions, always leave their
slippers at the door of the mosque. The Druids practiced the same custom
whenever they celebrated their sacred rites; and the ancient Peruvians are
said always to have left their shoes at the porch when they entered the
magnificent temple consecrated to the worship of the sun. Adam Clarke
(Commentary on Elodus) thinks that the custom of worshiping the Deity
barefooted, was so general among all nations of antiquity, that he assigns it
as one of his thirteen proofs that the whole human race have been derived from
one family. Finally, Bishop Patrick, speaking of the origin of this Rite,
says, in his Commentaries: "Moses did not give the first beginning to this
Rite, but it was derived from the patriarchs before him, and transmitted to
future times from that ancient, general tradition; for we find no command in
the law of Moses or the priests performing the service of the temple without
shoes, but it is certain they did so from immemorial custom; and so do the
Mohammedans and other nations at this day."
*
DISCIPLINA ARCANl
See Discipline of the Secret
*
DISCIPLINE
This word is used by
Freemasons, in its ecclesiastical sense! to signify the execution of the laws
by which a Lodge is governed and the infliction of the penalties enjoined
against offenders who are its members, or, not being members, live within its
jurisdiction. To discipline a Freemason is to subject him to punishment (see
Jurisdiction and Punishments) .
*
DISCIPLINE OF THE SECRET
There existed in the earlier
ages of the Christian church a mystic and secret worship, from which a portion
of the congregation was peremptorily excluded, and whose privacy was guarded,
with the utmost care, from the obtrusive eyes of all who had not been duly
initiated into the sacred rites that qualified them to be present. This custom
of communicating only to a portion of the Christian community the more
abstruse doctrines and more sacred ceremonies of the church, is known among
ecclesiastical writers by the name of Disciplina Arcani, or the Discipline of
the Secret.
Converts were permitted to attain a knowledge of all the doctrines, and
participate in the sacraments of the church, only after a long and
experimental probation. The young Christian, like the disciple of Pythagoras,
was made to pass through a searching ordeal of time and patience, by which his
capacity, his fidelity, and his other qualifications were strictly tested. For
this purpose, different ranks were instituted in the congregation. The lowest
of these were named the Catechumens, meaning in English, the beginners, those
under instruction. These were occupied in a study of the elementary principles
of the Christian religion. Their connection with the church was not
consummated by baptism, to which rite they were not admitted, even as
spectators, it being the symbol of a higher Degree; but their initiation was
accompanied with solemn ceremonies, consisting of prayer, signing with the
cross, and the imposition of hands by the priest. The next Degree was that of
the Competentes. or seekers.
When a Catechumen had
exhibited satisfactory evidences of his proficiency in religious knowledge, he
petitioned the Bishop for the sacrament of baptism. His name was then
registered in the books of the church. After this registration, the candidate
underwent the various ceremonies appropriate to the Degree upon which he vas
about to enter. He was examined by the bishop as to his attainments in
Christianity, and, if approved, was exorcized for twenty days, during which
time he was subjected to rigorous fasts, and, having made confession, the
necessary penance was prescribed. He was then, for the first time, instructed
in the words of the Apostles' Creed, a symbol of which the Catechumens were
entirely ignorant.
Another ceremony peculiar to
the Competentes was that of going about with their faces veiled. Saint
Augustine explains the ceremony by saying that the Competentes went veiled in
public as an image of the slavery of Adam after his expulsion from Paradise,
and that, after baptism. the veils were taken away as an emblem of the liberty
of the spiritual life which was obtained by the sacrament of regeneration.
Some other significant ceremonies, but of a less important character, were
used. and the Competent, having passed through them all, was at length
admitted to the highest Degree.
The Fideles, or Faithful,
constituted the Third Degree or Order. Baptism was the ceremony by which the
Competentes, after an examination into their proficiency, were admitted into
this Degree. "They were thereby," says Bingham, "made complete and perfect
Christians, and were, upon that account, dignified with several titles of
honor and marks of distinction above the Catechumens." They were called
Illuminati, or Illuminated, because they had been enlightened as to those
secrets which were concealed from the inferior orders.
They were also called Initiati,
or Initiated, because they were admitted to a knowledge of the sacred
mysteries; and so commonly was this name in use, that, when Chrysostom and the
other ancient writers spoke of their concealed doctrines, they did so in
ambiguous terms, so as not to be understood by the Catechumens, excusing
themselves for their brief allusions, by saying, "the Initiated know what we
mean." And so complete was the understanding of the ancient Fathers of a
hidden mystery, and an initiation into them, that Saint Ambrose has written a
book, the title of which is, Concerning those who are Initiated into the
Mysteries. They were also called the perfect, to intimate that they had
attained to a perfect knowledge of all the doctrines and sacraments of the
church.
There were certain sprayers,
which none but the Faithful were permitted to hear. Among these was the Lord's
prayer, which, for this reason, was commonly called Oratio Fidelium, or, the
Prayer of the Faithful. They were also admitted to hear discourses upon the
most profound mysteries of the church, to which the Catechumens were strictly
forbidden to listen. Saint Ambrose, in the book written by him to the
Initiated, says that sermons on the subject of morality were daily preached to
the Catechumens; but to the Initiated they gave an explanation of the
Sacraments, which, to have spoken of to the unbaptized, would have rather been
like a betrayal of mysteries than instruction.
Saint Augustine, in one of his
sermons to the Faithful, says: "Having now dismissed the Catechumens, you
alone have we retained to hear us, because, in addition to those things which
belong to all Christians in common, we are now about to speak in an especial
manner of the Heavenly Mysteries, which none can hear except those who, by the
gift of the Lord, are able to comprehend them."
The mysteries of the church
were divided, like the Ancient Mysteries, into the lesser and the greater. The
former was called Missa Catechumenorum, or the Mass of the Catechumens, and
the latter, Missa Fidelium, or the Mass of the Faithful. The public service of
the church consisted of the reading of the Scripture, and the delivery of a
sermon, which was entirely of a moral character. These being concluded, the
lesser mysteries, or Mass of the Catechumens, commenced. The deacon proclaimed
in a loud voice, " Ne quis audientium, ne quis infidelium," that is, the Latin
meaning, Let none who are simply hearers, and let no infuiets be present. All
then who had not acknowledged their faith in Christ by placing themselves
among the Catechumens, and all Jews and Pagans, were caused to retire, that
the Mass of the Catechumens might begin. For better security, a deacon was
placed at the men's door and a subdeacon at the women's, for the deacons were
the doorkeepers, and, in fact, received that name in the Greek church. The
Mass of the Catechumens which consisted almost entirely of prayers, with the
episcopal benediction was then performed.
This part of the service
having been concluded, the Catechumens were dismissed by the deacons, with the
expression, Catechumens, depart in peace. The Competentes, however, or those
who had the Second or Intermediate Degree, remained until the prayers for
those who were possessed of evil spirits, and the supplications for
themselves, were pronounced. After this, they too were dismissed, and none now
remaining in the church but the Faithful, the Missa Fidelium, or greater
mysteries, commenced.
The formula of dismission used
by the deacon on this occasion was: Sancta sanctis, foras canes, the Latin for
Holy things for the holy, let the dogs depart, the word doff being a term of
reproach for the unworthy, the hangers-on.
The Faithful then all repeated
the creed, which served as an evidence that no intruder or uninitiated person
was present; because the creed was not revealed to the Catechumens, but served
as a password to prove that its possessor was an initiate. After prayers had
been offered up—which, however, differed from the supplications in the former
part of the service, by the introduction of open allusions to the most
abstruse doctrines of the church, which were never named in the presence of
the Catechumens the oblations were made, and the Eucharistical Sacrifice, or
Lord's Supper, was celebrated. Prayers and invocations followed, and at length
the service was concluded, and the assembly was dismissed by the benediction,
"Depart in peace."
Bingham records the following rites as having been concealed from the
Catechumens, and entrusted, as the sacred mysteries, only to the Faithful: the
manner of receiving baptism; the ceremony of confirmation; the ordination of
priests; the mode of celebrating the Eucharist; the Liturgy, or Divine
Service; and the doctrine of the Trinity, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer,
which last, however, were begun to be explained to the Competentes.
Such was the celebrated
Discipline of the Secret in the early Christian church. That its origin, so
far as the outward form was concerned, is to be found in the Mysteries of
Paganism, there can be no doubt, as has been thus expressed by the learned
Mosheim:
Religion having thus, in both
its branches the speculative as well as the practical, assumed a twofold
charater - the one public or common, the other private or mysterious it was
not long before a distinction of a similar kind took place also in the
Christian discipline and form of divine worship; for, observing that in Egypt
as well as in other countries, the heathen worshippers in addition to their
public religious ceremonies to which everyone was admitted without
distinction, had certain secret and most sacred rites, to which they gave the
name of mysteries, and at the celebration of which none but persons of the
most approved faith and discretion were permitted to be present, the
Alexandrian Christians first. and after them others, were beguiled into a
notion that they could not do better than make the Christian discipline
accommodate itself to this model. No trace of the Disciptina Arcani is found
until the end of the second century and it appears to have died rapidly near
the close of the sixth century Strong traces of it are asserted by the
encyclopedists to be even now in the Greek liturgy. Further details are given
in the old works De Duciptini Arcani by Schelstrate, published at Rome in
1685, and that by Tentzel, published at Leipzig in 1692.
*
DISCOVERY OF THE BODY
See Euresis
*
DISCOVERY, THE YEAR OF THE
The Latin phrase Anno
Inventionis, or in the Year of the Discovery, is the style assumed by the
Royal Arch Masons, in commemoration of an event which took place soon after
the commencement of the rebuilding of the Temple by Zerubbabel.
*
DISMISSORIAL
The German name for what
English Freemasons call a Certificate of Lodge Resignation. A Dimit.
*
DISPENSATION
A permission to do that which,
without such permission, is forbidden by the constitutions and usages of the
Order.
Du Cange (in the Glossarium)
defines a Dispensation to be a prudent relaxation of a general law, the Latin
expression being Provida juris cmmmunis relaxatio. While showing how much the
ancient eclesiastical authorities were opposed to the granting of
Dispensations, since they preferred to pardon the offense after the law had
been violated, rather than to give a previous license for its violation, he
adds, "but, however much the Roman Pontiffs and pious Bishops felt of
reverence for the ancient Regulations, they were often compelled to depart in
some measure from them, for the utility of the church; and this milder measure
of acting the jurists called a Dispensation."
This power to dispense with
the provisions of law in particular cases appears to be inherent in the Grand
Master; because, although frequently referred to in the old Regulations, it
always is as if it were a power already in existence, and never by way of a
new grant. There is no record of any Masonic statute or constitutional
provision conferring this prerogative in distinct cords. The instances,
however, in which this prerogative may be exercised are clearly enumerated in
various places of the Old Constitutions, so what there can be no difficulty in
understanding to what extent the prerogative extends.
The power of granting
dispensations is confided to the Grand Master, or his representative, but
should not be exercised except on extraordinary occasions, or for excellent
reasons. The dispensing power is conned to four circumstances:
1. A Lodge cannot be opened
and held unless a Warrant of Constitution be first granted by the (Grand
Lodge; but the Grand Master may issue his Dispensation, empowering a
constitutional number of Brethren to open and hold a Lodge until the next
Communication of the Grand Lodge. At this communication, the Dispensation of
the Grand Master is either revoked or confirmed.. A Lodge under Dispensation
is not permitted to be represented, nor to vote in the Grand Lodge.
2. Not more than five
candidates can be made at the same communication of a Lodge; but the Grand
Master, on showing of sufficient cause, may extend to a Lodge the privilege of
making as many more as he may think proper.
3. No brother can, at the same
time, belong to two Lodges within three miles of each other. But the Grand
Master may dispense with this regulation also.
4. Every Lodge must elect and
install its officers on the constitutional night, which, in most Masonic
Jurisdictions, precedes the anniversary of Saint John the Evans list. Should
it, however neglect this duty, or should any officer die, or be expelled. or
removed permanently no subsequent election or installation can take place,
exept under Dispensation of the Grand Master.
*
DISPENSATION, LODGES UNDER
See Lodge
*
DISPENSATIONS OF RELIGION
An attempt has been made to
symbolize the Pagan, the Jewish, and the Christian Dispensations by a certain
ceremony of the Master's Degree which dramatically teaches the resurrection of
the body and the immortality of the soul. The reference made in this ceremony
to portions of the First, Second, and Third Degrees is used to demonstrate the
differences of the three dispensations in the reception of these two dogmas.
It is said that the unsuccessful effort in the Entered Apprentice's Degree
refers to the heathen dispensation, where neither the resurrection of the body
nor the immortality of the soul was recognized; at the second unsuccessful
effort in the Fellow Craft's Degree refers to the Jewish dispensation, where,
though the resurrection of the body was unknown, the immortality of the soul
was dimly hinted; and that the final and successful effort in the Master's
Degree symbolizes the Christian Dispensation, in which, through the teachings
of the Lion of the tribe of Judah, both the resurrection of the body and the
immortality of the soul were clearly brought to light. This symbolism, which
is said by Brother Mackey to have been the invention of a peripatetic lecturer
in the South many years ago, is so forced and fanciful in its character, that
it did not long survive the local and temporary teachings of its inventor, and
is only preserved here as an instance of how symbols, like metaphors, may
sometimes run mad.
But there is another symbolism of the three Degrees, as illustrating three
dispensations, which is much older, having originated among the lecture makers
of the eighteenth century, which for a long time formed a portion of the
authorized ritual, and has been repeated with approbation by some
distinguished writers. In this the three Degrees are said to be symbols in the
progressive knowledge which they impart of the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and
the Christian dispensations. The First, or Entered Apprentice's Degree, in
which but little Masonic light is communicated, and which, indeed, is only
preparatory and introductory to the two succeeding Degrees, is said to
symbolize the first, or Patriarchal Dispensation, the earliest revelation,
where the knowledge of God was necessarily imperfect, His worship only a few
simple rites of devotion, and the religious dogmas merely a general system of
morality.
The Second, or Fellow Craft's
Degree, is symbolic of the second or Mosaic Dispensation, in which, while
there were still many imperfections, there was also a great increase of
religious knowledge, and a nearer approximation to Divine truth, with a
promise in the future of a better theodicy. But the Third, or Master Mason's
Degree, which, in its original conception, before it was dismembered by the
innovations of the Royal Arch, was perfect and complete in its consummation of
all Masonic light, symbolizes the last, or Christian Dispensation, where the
great and consoling doctrine of the resurrection to eternal life is the
crowning lesson taught by its Divine Founder. This subject is very fully
treated by the Rev. James Watson, in an address delivered at Laneaster,
England, in 1795, and contained in Jones's Masonic Miscellanies (page 245);
better, in Brother Mackey's opinion, by him than even by Hutchinson.
Beautiful as this symbolism
may be, and appropriately fitting in all its parts to the laws of symbolic
science, it is evident that its origin cannot be traced farther back than to
the period when Freemasonry was first divided into three distinctive Degrees;
nor could it have been invented later than the time when Freemasonry was
deemed, if not an exclusively Christian organization, at least to be founded
on and fitly illustrated by Christian dogmas. At present, this symbolism,
though preserved in the speculations of such Christian writers as Hutchinson
and Oliver, and those who are attached to their peculiar school, finds no
place in the modern cosmopolitan rituals. It may belong, as an explanation, to
the history of Freemasonry, but can scarcely make a part of its symbolism.
Here a brief note may be added to the above comments by Brother Mackey on this
important subject to say that a notebook formerly in the possession of Brother
John Barney, whose field of instruction in the Masonic ceremonies extended
through Ohio, Indiana, Michigan and Illinois, has a monitorial teaching
pertaining to the three Dispensations concluding with Christianity, a lecture
ready for use when desired but which could easily be omitted on other
occasions. Such a lecture is unknown to the practice of-the present
generation.
*
DISPERSION OF MANKIND
The dispersion of mankind at
the tower of Babel and on the plain of Shinar, which is recorded in the Book
of Genesis, has given rise to a Masonic tradition of the following purport:
The knowledge of the great truths of God and immortality were known to Noah,
and by him communicated to his immediate descendants, the Noachidae or
Noachites, by whom the true worship continued to be cultivated for some time
after the subsidence of the deluge; but when the human race were dispersed, a
portion lost sight of the Divine truths which had been communicated to them
from their common ancestor, and fell into the most grievous theological
errors, corrupting the purity of the worship and the orthodoxy of the
religious faith which they had primarily received.
These truths were preserved in
their integrity by but a very few in the patriarchal line, while still fewer
were enabled to retain only dim and glimmering portions of the true light. The
first class was confined to the direct descendants of Noah, and the second was
to be found among the priests and philosophers, and, perhaps, still later,
among the poets of the heathen nations, and among those whom they initiated
into the secrets of these truths.
The system of doctrine of the
former class has been called by Masonic writers the Pure or Primitive
Freemasonry of antiquity, and that of the latter class the Spurious
Freemasonry of the same period. These terms were first used by Doctor Oliver,
and are intended to refer—the word pure to the doctrines taught by the
descendants of Noah in the Jewish line, and the word spurious to those taught
by his descendants in the heathen or Gentile line.
*
DISPUTE
The spirit of all the Ancient
Charges and Constitutions is, that disputes among Freemasons should be settled
by an appeal to the Brethren, to whose award the disputants were required to
submit. Thus, in an Old Record of the fifteenth century, it is provided, among
other charges, that: If any discord shall be between him and his fellows, he
shall abey him mekely and be stylle at the byddyng of his Master or of the
Wardeyne of his Master, in his Master's absent to the holy day following, and
that he accorded then at the disposition of his fellows.
A similar regulation is to be
found in all the other old Charges and Constitutions, and is continued in
operation at this day by the Charges approved in 1799, which express the same
idea in more modern language.
*
DISSOLVED LODGES
A Lodge in England may be
dissolved by the unanimous consent of its members and can be erased or
suspended by proper vote of Grand Lodge. Should a majority of the members of
any Lodge decide to retire from it the rest of the members have the power of
assembling. Should, however, all the members withdraw, the Lodge becomes
automatically extinct.
*
DISTINCTIVE TITLE
In the rituals, all Lodges are
called Lodges of Saint Johns but every Lodge has also another name by which it
is distinguished. This is called its distinctive title. This usage is
preserved in the diplomas of the Continental Freemasons, especially the
French, where the specific name of the Lodge is always given as well as the
general title of Saint John, which it has in common with all other Lodges.
Thus, a Diploma issued by a French Lodge whose name on the Register of the
Grand Orient would perhaps be La Vérité, meaning The Truth, will purport to
have been issued by the Lodge of Saint John, under the distinctive title of La
Vérité, or to use the full expression in French, par la Lope de St. Jeansous
be titre distinctif de la Varité. The term is never used in English or
American Diplomas.
*
DISTRESS, SIGN OF
See Sign of Distress
*
DISTRICT DEPUTY GRAND MASTER
An officer appointed to
inspect old Lodges, consecrate new ones, install their officers, and exercise
a general supervision over the Fraternity in the districts where, from the
extent of the jurisdiction, the Grand Master or his Deputy cannot conveniently
attend in person. He is considered as a Grand Officer, and as the
representative of the Grand Lodge in the district in which he resides. In
England, officers of this description are called Provincial Grand Masters.
*
DISTRICT GRAND LODGES
In the Constitution of the
Grand Lodge of England and some other Jurisdictions, Grand Lodges in colonies
and other foreign parts are called Distract Grand Lodges, to distinguish them
from Provincial Grand Lodges or the sovereign governing Masonic body.
*
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
The District of Columbia lies
partly in the State of Maryland and partly in the State of Virginia. It was
set apart by Act of Congress on July 16, 1790, for the capital of the United
States. Some months previously, on April 21, 1769, Potomac Lodge, No. 9, had
been organized in Georgetown by the Grand Lodge of Maryland but later it
ceased work. Potomac Lodge, No. 43, warranted on November 11, 1806, was the
first Lodge in the State to endure. A Convention was held on December 11,
1810, by five Lodges, namely Federal, No. 15; Brooke, No. 47; Columbia, No.
35; Washington Naval, No. 41, and Potomac, No.43. The organization of a Grand
Lodge was fully completed on February 19, 1811.
The first Chapter or
Encampment, as it was called in the District of Columbia, worked under the
Charter of Federal Lodge, No. 15, F. A. A. M., of the Jurisdiction of the
Grand Lodge of Maryland. A meeting took place on Monday, December 14, 1795, to
make arrangements for the new Chapter. Two other meetings were held, one on
December 16, 1795, and one on June 17, 1797, before the Chapter was finally
constituted. In February, 1799, it was decided that the Royal Arch Encampment
should be broken up. A Dispensation dated August 30, 1822, was issued by the
General Grand High Priest to the Chapters in the District of Columbia to
organize a Grand Chapter. Representatives of Federal Chapter, No. 3; Union,
No. 4; Brooke, No. 6, and Potomac, No. 8, were present at a Convention held on
Tuesday, February 10, 1824. Potomac Chapter, however, decided to continue
under her old Charter. After January 8, 1833, the Grand Lodge of the District
of Columbia no longer existed and the Chapters were placed under the
Jurisdiction of the Grand Chapter of Maryland. In the year 1867 steps were
taken to reorganize a Grand Chapter by Columbia, No. 15; Washington, No. 16;
Mount Vernon, No. 20, and Potomac, No. 8, and it was duly constituted in
Washington at the Opera House on May 23 1867. After encountering much trouble
and opposition, the Grand Chapter of the District was admitted to the General
Grand chapter in 1868 and a short time after was joined by 'Potomac Chapter,
No. 8. The Select Degrees were at first conferred in Chapters. When the Grand
Chapter of the District of Columbia was organized in 1867 it resolved to drop
the Select Degrees from Chapter work, and Companion Benjamin B. French issued
Dispensations to form three Councils for the District. These, however, ceased
work after a short time.
Washington Council No. 1,
chartered August 14, 1883; Adoniram Council No. 2, chartered November 9, 1909,
and Columbia No. 3, chartered September 30, 1918, through their
representatives at a Convention held at Washington on April 5, 1919, General
Grand Master George A. Newell, presiding, formed the Grand Council, Royal and
Select Masters of the District of Columbia, Companion George E. Corson being
the first Grand Master and John A. Colborn, Grand Recorder.
The first Commandery organized
was Washington, No. 1, in the City of Washington, December 1, 1824, chartered
January 14, 1825. Representatives of Washington, No. 1; Columbia, No. 2;
Potomac, No. 3; De Molay Mounted, No. 4, and Orient, No. 5, met in Convention,
January 14, 1896, and constituted the Grand Commandery by authority of a
Warrant dated December , 1895. The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite was
first introduced to Washington when Mithras Lodge of Perfection, No. 1;
Evangelist Chapter of Rose Croix, No. 1; Robert de Bruce Council of kadosh,
No. 1, and Albert Pike Consistory, No. 1, were chartered on December 30, 1870;
December 7, 1871; January 29, 1874, and January 12, 1876, respectively.
*
DIU
Understood to be an
abbreviation meaning the Shining Light of Heaven. An Indian word applied to
the Supreme God, of the same signification as the Greek words Zeus and Theos,
and the Latin Deus, Jupiter or Jovis; in Sanskrit, Dewas; in Lettish, Dews; in
Gothic, Thius; and in North German, Tyr.
*
DIVINING-ROD or PEDUM
The moderator, or Royal
Master, was imaged with the ureas on his forehead, the pedum and the whip
between his knees. The Divining-Rod or wand of divination, a magic wand, was a
symbol of pn, Hek, signifies a law, a statute, or custom; and therefore ppl, a
legislator, a scepter, a king, moderator, and a pedum. Hence, a staff. It is
represented by a crook surmounted on a pole. The rod of the Rose Croix Knight
is dissimilar; it is straight, white, like a wand, and yet may be used as a
helping or leaning staff.
*
DOCUMENTS, THREE OLDEST
See Krause
DODD, REVEREND WILLIAM
Born 1729, first Grand
Chaplain of England, 1775, and died 1777. Weakness of character in money
matters caused him to be tried for forgery, and executed. At the dedication of
Freemasons Hall in London, 1776, he delivered an oration and he was also the
author of many books and literary papers. His Beauties of Shakespeare was very
popular.
*
DODD'S CONSTITUTIONS
This is a printed pamphlet of
twenty pages, in quarto, the title being The beginning and the first
Foundation of the Most Worthy Craft of Masonry; with the Charges there unto
belonging. By a deceased Brother, for the benefit of his widow. London:
printed for Mrs. Dodd at the Peacock without Temple Bar. 1739. Price,
sixpence.
Probably this pamphlet was
printed from the Spencer Manuscript; it is very rare, but the Grand Lodges of
England and Iowa each have a copy and so had Brother Enoch T. Carson of
Cincinnati, who reprinted 125 copies of it in 1886; it has also been
reproduced in facsimile by the Quatuor Coronati Lodge in volume iv of its
Masonic Reprints.
*
DOG
A symbol in the Advanced
Degrees (see Cynocephalus).
*
DOLMEN
A name given in France to the
Celtic stone tables termed in England cromlechs.
*
DOMATIC
At one time, especially in
Scotland, Operative Freemasons were styled Domatic, while the Speculative ones
were known as Geometric; but theorigin and derivation of the terms are unknown
*
DOMINE DEUS MEUS
The Hebrew term for this Latin
expression is ..... , pronounced as Ad-o-noy ' El-o-hay, signifying oh Lord,
my God, and referring to the Third Degree of the Scottish Rite.
*
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Freemasonry, in the Dominican
Republic, had for its center the National Grand Orient, which possessed the
supreme authority and which practiced the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
The Grand Orient was divided into a National Grand Lodge, under which have
been fifteen Symbolic Lodges; a sovereign Grand Chapter General, under which
are all Chapters; and a Supreme Council, which controlled the Advanced Degrees
of the Rite. Santo Domingo was the headquarters of Morin (see further
reference to him in this work) in 1763, when he was establishing the Scottish
Rite in America.
Following the formation of the
Republic of Santo Domingo in 1844, a Grand Orient was established in 1858 by
Lodges originally chartered by the Grand Orient of Haiti. A Grand Lodge was
organized in 1865 and later in that year there came into being a Supreme
Council, the two uniting as a National Grand Orient on January 1, 1866.
*
DOMINICANS, ORDER OF
Founded at Toulouse, in 1215,
by Dominic, or Domingo, de Guzman, who was born at Calahorra, in Old Castile,
1170. He became a traveling missionary to convert the heretical Albigenses,
and established the Order for that purpose and the cure of souls. The Order
was confirmed by Popes Innocent III and Honorius III, in 1216. Dress, white
garment, with black cloak and pointed cap. Dominic died at Bologna, 1221, and
was canonized, given saintly standing in the church, by Gregory IX in 1233
*
DONATS
A class of men who were
attached to the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, or Knights of Malta. They
did not take the vows of the Order, but were employed in the various offices
of the convent and hospital. In token of their connection with the Order, they
wore what was called the demi-cross (see Knights of Malta).
*
DOOR
Every well-constructed
Lodge-room should be provided with two doors—one on the left hand of the
Senior Warden, communicating with the preparation room; the other on his right
hand, communicating with the Tiler's apartment.
The former of these is called
the Inner Door, and is under the charge of the Senior Deacon; the latter is
called the outer Door, and is under the charge of the Junior Deacon. In a
well-furnished Lodge, each of these doors is provided with two knockers, one
on the inside and the other on the outside; and the outside door has sometimes
a small aperture in the center to facilitate communications between the Junior
Deacon and the Tiler. This, however, is a modern innovation, and its propriety
and expediency are very doubtful. No communication ought legally to be held
between the inside and the outside of the Lodge except through the door, which
should be opened only after regular alarm duly reported, and on the order of
the Worshipful Master.
Brother Mackey here describes the common practice in the United States of
America, but the arrangement he advocates is by no means universal, Brother
Clegg reporting instances found abroad where he entered at the left of the
Senior Warden.
*
DORIC ORDER
The oldest and most original
of the three Grecian orders. It is remarkable for robust solidity in the
column, for massive grandeur in the entablature, and for harmonious simplicity
in its construction. The distinguishing characteristic of this order is the
want of a base. The flutings are few, large, and very little concave. The
capital has no astragal or molding, but only one or more fillets, which
separate the flutings from the torus or bead. The column of strength which
supports the Lodge is of the Doric order, and its appropriate situation and
symbolic officer are in the West (see Orders of Architecture).
*
DORMANT LODGE
A Lodge whose Charter has not
been revoked, but which has ceased to meet and work for a long time, is said
to be dormant. It can be restored to activity only by the authority of the
Grand Master or the Grand Lodge on the petition of some of its members, one of
whom, at least, ought to be a Past Master.
*
DORMER
In the Lectures, according to
the present English system, the ornaments of a Master Mason's Lodge are said
to be the porch, dormer, and square pavement. The dormer is the window which
is supposed to give light to the Holy of Holies. In the Glossary of
Architecture, a dormer is defined to be a window pierced through a sloping
roof, and placed in a small gable which rises on the side of the roof. This
symbol is not preserved in the American system.
*
DOTAGE
The regulations of Freemasonry
forbid the initiation of an old man in his dotage; and very properly, because
the imbecility of his mind would prevent his comprehension of the truths
presented to him.
*
DOUBLE CUBE
A cubical figure, whose length
is equal to twice its breadth and height. Solomon's Temple is said to have
been of this figure, and hence it has sometimes been adopted as the symbol of
a Masonic Lodge. Doctor Oliver (Dictionary of Symbolic Masonry) thus describes
the symbolism of the double cube:
The heathen deities were many
of them represented by a cubical stone. Pausanius informs us that a cube was
the symbol of Mercury because, like the cube, he represented Truth. In Arabia,
a black stone in the form of a double cube was reputed to be possessed of many
occult virtues. Apollo was sometimes worshiped under the symbol of a square
stone; and it is recorded that when a fatal pestilence raged at Delphi, the
oracle was consulted as to the means proper to be adopted for the purpose of
arresting its progress, and it commanded that the cube should be doubled. This
was understood by the priests to refer to the altar, which was of a cubical
form. They obeyed the injunction, increasing the altitude of the altar to its
prescribed dimensions, like the pedestal in a Masons Lodge, and the pestilence
ceased.
We may here add a few comments
upon what Brother Mackey says of the double cube because the account may be
understood in a somewhat different way. In fact, the famous problem of
antiquity concerning the cube was not so simple as to give it twice the
dimensions of its edges but to produce a cube twice the volume of another one,
which is an entirely different proposition.
The origin of the problem is not definitely known but probably it was
suggested by the one credited to Pythagoras, namely, squat a square or
constructing a square of twice the area of a Seen square.
The account given by Doctor
Oliver is credited to Eratosthenes about 200 B.C. This authority in a letter
to Ptolemy Euergetes tells the history of the problem. The Delphians,
suffering a pestilence, consulted their oracles and were ordered to double the
volume of the altar to be erected to their god, Apollo. An altar was built
having an edge double the length of the original but the plague went on
unabated, the oracles not having been obeyed. However, this story is a mere
fable and is given no weight at the present time.
*
DOUBLE-HEADED EAGLE
See Eagle Double headed
*
DOUGLAS, STEPHEN ARNOLD
American statesman, born at
Brandon, Vermont, April 23, 1813, and died June 3, 1861, at Chicago.
Resourceful in political leadership, his rise to national prominence was
rapid. Representative from Illinois, 1843, he became Senator in 1847,
unsuccessful candidate for President, 1852 and 1856, and in 1858 ably debated
with Abraham Lincoln in seven cities. His petition to Springfield Lodge No. 4,
at Springfield, Illinois, is reproduced in this world The original hangs in
the Lodge-room and the photograph was kindly furnished us by Brother H. C.
McLoud.
*
DOVE
In ancient symbolism's the
dove represented purity and innocence; in ecclesiology, especially in church
decoration, it is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. In Freemasonry, the dove is
only viewed in reference to its use by Noah as a messenger. Hence, in the
Grand Lodge of England, doves are the jewels of the Deacons, because these
officers are the messengers of the Masters and Wardens.
They are not so used in America. In an honorary or side Degree formerly
conferred in America, and called the Arks roll of parchment, in a very clear
hand, apparently and Dove, that bird is a prominent symbol.
*
DOVE, KNIGHTS AND LADIES OF
THE
An Brother extinct secret
society, of a Masonic model, but androgynous, including both sexes, instituted
at Versailles, France in 1784.
*
DOWLAND MANUSCRIPT
First published by James
Dowland, in the Gentelman's Magazine, May, 1815 (volume lxxxv, page 489).
"Written on a long roll of parchment in a very clear hand , apparently early
in the seventeenth century, and very probably is copied from a manuscript of
earlier date." Brother William J. Hughan says: "Brother Woodford, Mr. Sims,
and other eminent authorities, consider the original of the copy, from which
the manuscript for the Gemtelman's Magazine was written, to be a scroll of at
least a century earlier than the date ascribed to Mr.Dowland's manuscript,
that is, about 1550."
The original manuscript from
which Dowland made his copy has not yet been traced. Hughan's Old Charades,
the edition of 1872, contains a reprint of the Douwland Manuscript.
*
DRAESEKE, JOHAN HEINRICH
DERNHARDT
A celebrated pulpit orator of
great eloquence, born at Brunswick, 1774, and died at Potsdam, 1849, who
presided over the Lodge named Oelzweig, meaning, the Olive Branch, in Bremen,
for three years, and whose contributions to Masonic literature were collected
and published in 1865, by A. W. Muller, under the title of Bishop Dräseke as a
Mason, in German Der Bischof Draseke als Maurer. Of this work Findel says that
it "contains a string of costly pearls full of Masonic eloquence."
*
DRAKE, FRANCIS
Francis Drake, M.D., F.R.S., a
celebrated antiquary and historian, was initiated in the city of York in 1725,
and, as Hughan says, "soon made his name felt in Masonry." His promotion was
rapid; for in the same year he was chosen Junior Grand Warden of the Grand
Lodge of York, and in 1726 delivered an address, which was published with the
following title: A Speech delivered to the Worshipful and Ancient Society of
Free and Accepted Masons, at a Grand Lodge held at Merchants' Hall, in the
city of York, on St. John's Day, December the 27th, 1726. The Right Worshipful
Charles Bathurst, Esq., Grand Master. By the Junior Grand Warden. Olim
meminisse Juvabit. York.
The Latin expression here is
quoted from the Poet Vergil, recalling the joys of other times. The address
was published in York without any date, but probably in 1727, and reprinted in
London in 1729 and 1734. It has often been reproduced since and can be found
in Hughan's Masonic Sketches and Reprints. In this work Brother Drake makes
the important statement that the first Grand Lodge in England was held at
York; and that while it recognizes the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge in
London as Grand Master of England, it claims that its own Grand Master is
Grand Master of all England. The speech is also important for containing a
very early reference to the three Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft
and Master Mason.
*
DRAMA
See Scenic Representations;
Mysteries, Ancient, and Master Mason
*
DRAMATIC LITERATURE OF
FREEMASONRY
Freemasonry has frequently
supplied the play writers with a topic for the exercise of their genius. Kloss
(Bibliographic, page 300) gives the titles of no less than forty-one plays of
which Freemasonry has been the subject. Brother William Rufus Chetwood wrote
the libretto of an opera entitled The Generous Freemason and this was given a
first performance in London in 1730. An account of it has been printed by
Brother Richard Northcott of the Covent Garden Theater, London, England. The
earliest Masonic play is noticed by Thory (Annales Oripnis Magni Galliarum
Orientis, ou Histoire de la Fondation du Grand Orient de France, meaning the
History of the Foundation of the Grand Orient of France, page 360), as having
been performed at Paris, in 1739, under the title of Les freemasons. Editions
of it were subsequently published at London, Brunswick, and Strasbourg. In
1741, we have Das Geheimniss der Freimaurer, the Freemason's Secret, at
Frankfort and Leipzig.
France and Germany made many
other contributions to the Masonic drama. Even Denmark supplied one in 1745,
and Italy in 1785. The English dramatists give us only a pantomime, Harlequin
Freemasons which was brought out at Covent Garden in 1781, and Solomon's
Temple, an oratorio. Templarism has not been neglected by the dramatists.
Kalchberg, in 1788, wrote Die Tempelherren, meaning The Templars, a dramatic
poem in the German language in five acts. Odon de Saint-Amand, Grand Maître
des Templiers, the latter title meaning Grand Master of the Templars, a
melodrama in three acts, was performed at Paris in 1806. Jacques Molai, a
melodrama, was published at Paris in 1807, and La Mort de Jacques Molai,
meaning in English the Death of James Molai, a tragedy, in 1812. Some of the
plays on Freemasonry were intended to do honor to the Order, and many to throw
ridicule upon it.
*
DRESDEN, CONGRESS OF
A General Congress of the
Lodges of Saxony was held in Dresden, in 1811, where the representatives of
twelve Lodges were present. In this Congress it was determined to recognize
only the Freemasonry of Saint John, and to construct a National Grand Lodge.
Accordingly, on September 28, 1811, the National Grand Lodge of Saxony was
established in the city of Dresden, which was soon joined by all the Saxon
Lodges, with the exception of one in Leipzig. Although it recognized only the
Symbolic Degrees, it permitted great freedom in the selection of a ritual;
and, accordingly, some of its Lodges worked in the Rite of Fessler, and others
in the Rite of Berlin.
*
DRESS OF A FREEMASON
See Clothed
*
DROP CLOTH
A part of the furniture used
in the United States of America in the ceremony of the Third Degree.
*
DROPS, THREE
Refers to mystic number of
drops of blood from the White Giant, that in the Persian mysteries restored
sight to the captives in the cell of horrors when applied by the conqueror
Rustam. In India, a girdle of three triple threads was deemed holy; 80 were
three drops of water in Brittany, and the same number of drops of blood in
Mexico.
*
DRUIDICAL MYSTERIES
The Druids were a sacred order
of priests who existed in Britain and Gaul, but whose mystical rites were
practiced in most perfection in the former country, where the isle of Anglesea
was considered as their principal seat. Godfrey Higgins thinks that they were
also found in Germany, but against this opinion we have the positive statement
of Caesar.
The meanings given to the word
have been very numerous, and most of them wholly untenable. The Romans, seeing
that they worshiped in groves of oak, because that tree was peculiarly sacred
among them, derived their name from the Greek word, apes, drus thus absurdly
seeking the etymology of a word of an older language in one comparatively
modern. Their derivation would have been more reasonable had they known that
in Sanskrit druma is an oak, from dru, meaning wood. It has also been traced
to the Hebrew with equal incorrectness, for the Druids were not of the Semitic
race. Its derivation is rather to be sought in the Celtic language. The Gaelic
word Druiah signifies a holy or wise man; in a bad sense a magician; and this
we may readily trace to the Aryan druh, applied to the spirit of night or
darkness, whence we have the Zend dru, a magician. Druidism was a mystical
profession, and in the olden time mystery and magic were always confounded.
Charles Vallencey (Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicus, iii 503) says: "Walsh,
Drud, a Druid, that is the absolver or remitter of sins; so the Irish Drui, a
Druid, most certainly is from the Persic duru, meaning a good and holy man";
and Ousely (Collectanea Oriental iv, 302) adds to this the Arabic dari, which
means a wise man. Bosworth (Anglo-Saxon Dictionary) gives dry, pronounced dru,
as the Anglo-Saxon for a magician, sorcerer, druid. Probably with the old
Celts the Druids occupied the same place as the Magi did with the old
Persians.
Druidism was divided into three orders or Degrees, which were, beginning with
the lowest the Bards, the Prophets, and the Druids. Godfrey Higgins thinks
that the prophets were the lowest order, but he admits that it is not
generally allowed. The constitution of the Order was in many respects like
that of the Freemasons. In every country there was an Arch-Druid in whom all
authority was placed. In Britain it is said that there were under him three
arch-flamens or priests, and twenty-five flamens. There was an annual assembly
for the administration of justice and the making of laws, and, besides, four
quarterly meetings, which took place on the days when the sun reached his
equinoctial and solstitial points. The latter two would very nearly correspond
at this time with the festivals of Saint John the Baptist and Saint John the
Evangelist. It was not lawful to commit their ceremonies or doctrines to
writing, and Caesar says (Commentarii de bello Gallico vi, 14) that they used
the Greek letters, which was, of course, as a cipher; but Godfrey Higgins
(page 90) says that one of the Irish Ogum alphabets, which Toland calls secret
writing, "was the original, sacred, and secret character of the Druids."
The places of worship, which
were also places of initiation, were of various forms: circular, because a
circle was an emblem of the universe; or oval, in allusion to the mundane egg,
from which, according to the Egyptians, our first parents issued; or
serpentine, because a serpent was a symbol of Hu, the druidical Noah; or
winged, to represent the motion of the Divine Spirit; or cruciform, because a
cross was the emblem of regeneration.
Their only covering was the
clouded canopy, because they deemed it absurd to confine the Omnipotent
beneath a roof; and they were constructed of embankments of earth, and of
unhewn stones, unpolluted with a metal tool. Nor was anyone permitted to enter
their sacred retreats, unless he bore a chain.
The ceremony of initiation
into the Druidical Mysteries required much preliminary mental preparation and
physical purification. The aspirant was clothed with the three sacred colors,
white, blue, and green; white as the symbol of Light, blue of Truth, and green
of Hope. When the rites of initiation were passed, the tri-colored robe was
changed for one of green; in the Second Degree, the candidate was clothed in
blue; and having surmounted all the dangers of the Third, and arrived at the
summit of perfection, he received the red tiara and flowing mantle of purest
white. The ceremonies were numerous, the physical proofs painful, and the
mental trials appalling. They commenced in the First Degree, with placing the
aspirant in the pastes, bed or coffin, where his symbolical death was
represented, and they terminated in the Third, by his regeneration or
restoration to life from the womb of the giantess Ceridwin, and the committal
of the body of the newly born to the waves in a small boat, symbolical of the
ark. The result was, generally, that he succeeded in reaching the safe
landing-place, but if his arm was weak, or his heart failed, death was the
almost inevitable consequence. If he refused the trial through timidity, he
was contemptuously rejected, and declared forever ineligible to participate in
the sacred rites. But if he undertook it and succeeded, he was joyously
invested with all the privileges of Druidism.
The doctrines of the Druids were the same as those entertained by Pythagoras.
They taught the existence of one Supreme Being; a future state of rewards and
punishment; the immortality of the soul, and a metempsychosis; and the object
of their mystic rites was to communicate these doctrines in symbolic language,
an object and a method common alike to Druidism, to the Ancient Mysteries and
to Modern Freemasonry (see also Druidism, Dudley Wright, London, 1924,
containing a bibliography of the subject).
*
DRUMMOND, JOSIAH HAYDEN
Born 1827, Brother Drummond
was made a Freemason in 1849, and died on October 25, 1902, aged seventy-five.
He served at the head of all the Masonic Bodies of his State, Maine, and had
also been Grand High Priest of the General Grand Chapter, Grand Master of the
General Grand Council, and Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, Northern
Masonic Jurisdiction, Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. A Freemason for
fifty-four years, this Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Maine, 1860 to 1862,
was for thirty-eight y ears a vigorous writer of the Foreign Correspondence
Reports and of other valuable works on Freemasonry. Christopher Diehl of the
Grand Lodge of Utah wrote of him in the Proceedings of 1903, "His whole life
was devoted to Freemasonry and for it he did his best work and because of that
work he will live in the hearts of his Brethren for all time to come. The
world is better off because he lived. His fame is secure. May his last sleep
be sweet." At the anniversary of the one hundred years since the death of
Washington, conducted by the Grand Lodge of Virginia at Mount Vernon on
December 14, 1899, when no less than seventeen Grand Masters were present
together with the President of the United States, Brother Drummond was
introduced by the Grand Master as follows:
"First of all I wish to call upon one whom Freemasonry delights to honor. The
most erudite and accomplished Masonic scholar our century has known, the charm
of whose personality and the strength of whose character, coupled with a
conservative, calm and judicial mind, has made him not only beloved but a
power of usefulness throughout the whole Masonic Fraternity" (see` Proceedings
of the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, 1900).
*
DRUSES
A sect of mystic religionists
who inhabit Mounts Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, in Syrian 294. They settled there
about the tenth century, and are said to be a mixture of Cuthites or Kurds,
Mardi Arabs, and possibly of Crusaders; all of whom were added, by subsequent
immigrations, to the original stock to constitute the present or modern race
of Druses.
Their religion is a heretical
compound of Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedism; the last of which, greatly
modified, predominates in their faith. They have a regular order of
priesthood, the office being filled by persons consecrated for the purpose,
comprising principally the emirs and sheiks, who form a secret organization
divided into several Degrees, keep the sacred books, and hold secret religious
assemblies. Their sacred books are written in antiquated Arabic. The Druses
are divided into three classes or Degrees, according to religious
distinctions. To enable one Druse to recognize another, a system of passwords
is adopted, without an interchange of which no communication is made that may
give an idea of their religious tenets (see Tien's Druse Religion Unveiled).
Doctor Clarke tells us in his Travels that "one class of the Druses are to the
rest what the initiated are to the profane, and are called Okkals, which means
spiritualists; and they consider themselves superior to their countrymen. They
have various degrees of initiation."
Colonel Churchill in his Ten
Years' Residence on Mount Lebanon, tells us that among this singular people
there is an order having many similar customs to the Freemasons. It requires a
twelve months' probation previous to the admission of a member. Both sexes are
admissible. In the second year the novice assumes the distinguishing mark of
the white turban, and afterward, by Degrees, is allowed to participate ;,n the
whole of the mysteries. Simplicity of attire, self-denial, temperance, and
irreproachable moral conduct are essential to admission to the order. All of
these facts have led to the theory that the Druses are an offshoot from the
early Freemasons, and that their connection with the latter is derived from
the Crusaders, who, according to the same theory, are supposed to have
acquired their Freemasonry during their residence in Palestine. Some writers
go so far as to say that the Degree of Prince of Libanus, the Twenty-second in
the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite, refers to the ancestors of these
mystical mountaineers in Syria.
Several chapters deal with the
Dresses in the Secret Sects of Syria and the Lebanon, by Brother Bernard H.
Springett, London.
*
DUAD
The number two in the
Pythagorean system of numbers.
*
DUALISM
The state of being two-fold,
as good and evil, for example. In the old mythologies, there was a doctrine
which supposed the world to have been always governed by two antagonistic
principles, distinguished as the good and the evil principle. This doctrine
pervaded all the Oriental religions. Thus in the system of Zoroaster, one of
the great religious teachers of the East we have Ahriman and Ormuzd, and in
the Hebrew cosmogony, their explanation of the system of the universe, we find
the Creator and the Serpent. There has been a remarkable development of this
system in the three degrees of Symbolic Freemasonry, which everywhere exhibit
in their organization, their symbolism, and their design, the pervading
influences of this principle of dualism. Thus, in the First Degree, there is
Darkness overcome by might; in the Second, Ignorance dispersed by Snout e, and
in the Third, Death conquered by Eternal Life
*
DUB
In the ancient ceremonies of
chivalry, a knight was made by giving him three strokes on the neck with the
flat end of the sword, and he was then said to be dubbed a knight. Dubbing is
from the Saxon, dubban, meaning to strike with a blow. sir Thomas Smith
(English Commonwealth), who wrote in the sixteenth century, says:
And when any man is made a
knight, he, kneeling down, is strooken of the prince, with his sword naked,
upon the back or shoulder the prince saying, Sus or sois chevalier au nom de
Dieu, the two expressions in French meaning Be of good cheer, Knight, in God's
name, and in times past they added St. George, and at his arising the prince
sayeth, Avancey. This is the manner of dubbing of knights at this present; and
that term dubbing was the old term in this point, and not creation.
*
DUE EAST AND WEST
A Lodge is said to be situated
due east and west for reasons which have varied at different periods in the
ritual and lectures (see Orientation).
*
DUE EXAMINATION
That sort of examination which
is correct and prescribed by law. It is one of the three modes of proving a
strange Brother; the other two being strict trial and lawful information (see
Vouching).
*
DUE FORM
When the Grand Lodge is
opened, or any other Masonic ceremony performed, by the Deputy Grand Master in
the absence of the Grand Master, it is said to be done in due form.
Subordinate Lodges are always said to be opened and closed in due form. It is
derived from the French word du, and that from devoir, meaning to owe, that
which is owing or ought to be done. Due form is the form in which an act ought
to be done to be done rightly. The French expression is En due form (see Ample
Form).
*
DUE GUARD
A mode of recognition which
derives its name from its object, which is to duly guard the person using it
in reference to his obligations, and the penalty for their violation. The Due
Guard is an Americanism, and of comparatively recent origin, being unknown to
the English and Continental systems. In some of the old books of the date of
1757, the expression is used, but only as referring to what is now called the
Sign. Dieu garde is similar in pronunciation to Due Guard and means God
preserve. This similarity is worth consideration.
*
DUELING
This has always been
considered a Masonic crime, and some of the Grand Lodges have enacted statutes
by which Freemasons who engage in duels with each other are subject to
expulsion. The Monde Maçonnique, the Masonic World, a French publication, May,
1858, gives the following correct view on this subject:
A Freemason who allows himself
to be involved in :3 duel and who possesses not sufficient discretion to be
able to make reparation without cowardice and without having recourse to this
barbarous extremity destroys by that impious act the contract which binds him
to his brethren. His sword or his pistol, though it may seem to spare his
adversary, still commits a murder for it destroys his brothers from that time
fraternity no longer exists for him.
*
DUES
The payment of annual dues by
a member to his Lodge is a comparatively modern custom, and one that certainly
did not exist before the revival of 1717. As previous to that period,
according to Preston, Lodges received no Warrants, but a sufficient number of
Brethren meeting together were competent to practice the Rites of Freemasonry,
and as soon as the special business which called them together had been
accomplished, they separated; there could have been no permanent organization
of Speculative Freemasons, and no necessity for contributions to constitute a
Lodge fund.
Dues must therefore have been
unknown except in the Lodges of Operative Freemasons, which, as we find,
especially in Scotland, had a permanent existence.
There is, accordingly, no
regulation in any of the old Constitutions for the payment of dues. Brother
Mackey held that it is not a general Masonic duty, in which the Freemason is
affected to the whole of the Craft, but an arrangement between himself and his
Lodge, with which the Grand Lodge ought not to interfere. As the payment of
dues is not a duty owing to the Craft in general, so, in his opinion, the
non-payment of them is not an offense against the Craft, but simply against
his Lodge, the only punishment for which should be striking from the roll or
discharge from membership.
Brother Mackey reports that in
his day it was the almost universal opinion of Masonic jurists that suspension
or expulsion from the Order is a punishment that should never be inflicted for
non-payment of dues. However, the reader must be referred to the Masonic Code
of his own Jurisdiction for the practice prevailing there.
*
DUMBNESS
Inability to speak. Although
the faculty of speech is not one of the five human senses, it is important as
the medium of communicating instruction, admonition, or reproof, and the
person who does not possess it is unfitted to perform the most important
duties of life. Hence dumbness disqualifies a candidate for Masonic
initiation.
*
DUMM
A word that has been used in
the Grand Chapter of Minnesota to signify what is more usually called a
substitute in the Royal Arch Degree.
*
DUNCKERLEY, THOMAS
No one, among the Freemasons
of England, occupied a more distinguished position or played a more important
part in the labors of the Craft during the latter part of the eighteenth
century than Thomas Dunckerley, whose private life was as romantic as his
Masonic career was honorable. Thomas Dunckerley was born in the city of London
on the 23d of October, 1724. He was the reputed son of a Mr. and Mrs. (Mary)
Dunekerley, but really owed his birth to a personage of a much higher rank in
life, being the natural son of the Prince of Wales, afterward George II, to
whom he bore, as his portrait shows, a striking resemblance. It was not until
after his mother's death that he became acquainted with the true history of
his birth; so that for more than half of his life this son of a king occupied
a very humble position on the stage of the world, and was sometimes even
embarrassed with the pressure of poverty and distress.
At the age of ten he entered
the navy, and continued in the service for twenty-six years, acquiring, by his
intelligence and uniformly good conduct, the esteem and commendation of all
his commanders. But having no personal or family interest, he never attained
to any higher rank than that of a gunner. During all this time, except at
brief intervals, he was absent from England on foreign service.
He returned to his native
country in January, 1760, to find that his mother had died a few days before,
and that on her death-bed she had made 3 solemn declaration, accompanied by
such details as left no possible doubt of its truth, that Thomas was the
illegitimate son of King George II, born while he was Prince of Wales. The
fact of the birth had, however, never been communicated by the mother to the
prince, and George II died without knowing that he had such a son living.
Dunckerley, in the account of
the affair which he left among his posthumous papers, says: "This information
gave me great surprise and much uneasiness; and as I was obliged to return
immediately to my duty on board the Vanguard, I made it known to no person at
that time but Captain Swanton. He said that those who did not know me would
look on it to be nothing more than a gossip's story. We were then bound a
second time to Quebec, and Captain Swanton did promise me that on our return
to England he would endeavor to get me introduced to the king, and that he
would give me a character; but when we came back to England the king was
dead." Dunckerley had hoped that his case would have been laid before his
royal father, and that the result would have been an appointment equal to his
birth. But the frustration of these hopes by the death of the king seems to
have discouraged him, and no efforts appear for some time to have been made by
him or his friends to communicate the facts to George III, who had succeeded
to the throne.
In 1761 he again left England
as a gunner in Lord Anson's fleet, and did not return until 1764, at which
time, finding himself embarrassed with 3 heavy debt, incurred in the expenses
of his family, for he had married in early life, in the year 1744, knowing no
person who could authenticate the story of his birth, and seeing no
probability of gaining access -to the ear of the king, he sailed in a merchant
vessel for the Mediterranean. He had previously been granted superannuation in
the navy in consequence of his long services, and received a small pension,
the principal part of which he left for the support of his family during his
absence.
But the romantic story of his
birth began to be publicly known and talked about, and in 1766 attracted the
attention of several persons of distinction, who endeavored, but without
success, to excite the interest of the Princess Dowager of Wales in his
behalf.
In 1767, however, the
declaration of his mother was laid before the king, who was George III, the
grandson of his father. It made an impression on him, and inquiry into his
previous character and conduct having proved satisfactory, in May 7, 1767, the
king ordered Dunckerley to receive a pension of £100, which was subsequently
increased to £800, together with a suite of apartments in Hampton Court
Palace. He also assumed, and was permitted to bear, the royal arms, with the
distinguishing badge of the bend sinister, and adopted as his motto the
appropriate words Fato non merito, meaning By destiny, not merit. In his
familiar correspondence, and in his book-plates, he used the name of Fitzy
George.
In 1770 he became a student of
law, and in 1774 was called to the bar; but his fondness for an active life
prevented him from ever making much progress in the legal profession.
Dunckerley died at Portsmouth
in the year 1795, at the ripe age of seventy-one; but his last years were
embittered by the misconduct of his son, whose extravagance and dissolute
conduct necessarily afflicted the mind while it straitened the means of the
unhappy parent. Every effort to reclaim him proved utterly ineffectual; and on
the death of his father, no provision being left for his support, he became a
vagrant, living for the most part on Masonic charity. At last he became a
bricklayer's laborer, and was often seen ascending a ladder with a hod on his
shoulders. His misfortunes and his misconduct at length found an end, and the
grandson of a king of England died a pauper in a cellar at St. Giles.
Dunckerley was initiated into
Freemasonry on January 10, 1754, in a Lodge, No. 31, which then met at the
Three Tuns, Portsmouth; in 1760 he obtained a Warrant for a Lodge to be held
on board the Vanguard, in which ship he was then serving; in the following
year the Vanguard sailed for the West Indies, and Dunckerley was appointed to
the Prince, for which ship a Lodge was warranted in 1762; this Warrant
Dunckerley appears to have retained when he left the service, and in 1766 the
Lodge was meeting at Somerset House, where Dunckerley was then living. In 1768
the Vanguard Lodge was revived in London, with Dunckerley as its first Master,
and it exists to the present day under the name of the London Lodge, No. 108.
In 1767 he joined the present
Lodge of Friendship; in 1785 he established a Lodge at Hampton Court, now No.
255. In 1767 he was appointed Provincial Grand Master of Hampshire, and in
1776 Provincial Grand Master for Essex, and at various dates he was placed in
charge of the provinces of Bristol, Dorsetshire, Gloucestershire,
Somersetshire, and Herefordshire. In Royal Arch Masonry Dunckerley displayed
equal activity as in Craft Masonry; he was exalted at Portsmouth in 1754 and
in 1766 joined the London Chapter, which in the following year became a Grand
Chapter.
He was especially active in
promoting Arch Masonry all over the country and was in charge of the English
counties of Essex, Hants, Kent, Wilts, Dorset, Devon, Somerset, Gloucester,
Suffolk, Sussex and Durham.
He was also a most zealous
Knight Templar, being in 1791 the first Grand Master of the Order when the
Grand Conclave was formed in London.
He was also a Mark Mason. A
Charge, or Oration, is still extant, which was delivered by him at Plymouth in
April, 1757, entitled The Light and Truth of Masonry Explained. He was also
the author of A Song for the Knights Templar, and of an Ode for an Exaltation
of Royal Arch Masons. These will be found in Thomas Dunckerley—his Life,
Labors and Letters, by H. Sadler, 1891. Brother Hawkins in submitting the
foregoing article points out that it is often asserted that Dunckerley revised
the Craft Lectures and reconstructed the Royal Arch Degree, but there is no
proof forthcoming of these statements. However, we may add to the comment by
Brother Hawkins an observation by Brother Sadler (page 224) where he tells us
that the publication of the various Charges, etc., by Brother Dunckerley are
of such a character that they not unlikely thereby originated the tradition
that he had revised or remodeled the Craft Lectures; but to Brother Sadler it
seemed more than probable that the compiler of the Lectures made a very free
use of Dunckerley's brains in the work of compilation.
*
DUPATY, LOUIS EMANUEL CHARLES
MERCIER
The author of many Masonic
songs and other fugitive pieces inserted in the Annales Maçonniques. He wrote
in 1810, with Révéroui de Saint-Cyr a comic opera entitled Cagliostro ou les
Illuminés In 1818 he published a Masonic tale entitled l'Harmonie. He was a
poet and dramatic writer of some reputation. He was born in the Gironde in
1775, elected to the French Academy in 1835, and died in 1851.
*
DURER, ALBRECHT
Famous German painter and
engraver. Born at Nuremberg, May 21, 1471 died April 6, 1528. His mystically
symbolic copper plates are particularly interesting and significant. The most
important from a Masonic point of view is probably one entitled Melancholy
(see illustration) in which is seen an exposition of medieval Freemasonry
which suggests that Durer was familiar with the Fraternity of his time,
possibly associated with the Nuremberg Lodge, and may have been a member of it
(see American Freemason, November, 1911, page 21).
A suggestive examination of
the symbolism of this 1514 copper-plate engraving was made by W. P. Tuckerman
and translated by R. T. House, appeared in the Open Court, July, 1911, and
extracts from it are by permission of the editor, Brother Paul Carus, given as
follows: "A promising field for investigation is furnished by Albrecht Durer's
copper-engravings, etchings and wood-cuts which, in addition to their other
great merits in the faithful portrayal of the life of his time, have caught
and handed on to us many old traditions. Real mines of information are Durer's
mystically symbolic copper-plates. Of these puzzling will-o-the-wisps the most
important is the one entitled 'Melancholy', which was formerly considered the
first picture in a cycle representing the various moods of the soul but which
now, viewed in the light of the Nuremberg developments, is seen to be an
exposition of medieval Freemasonry. In Strasbourg, 1598, Emperor Maximilian
gave to German Lodges, whose patron and honorary brother he was, a new
organization, charter, and coat of arms.
The years from 1439 to 1477
were occupied in the Construction of the choir of the Church of St. Lorenz in
Nuremberg, with its rich, artistic Gothic vaulted roof; and when we remember
the dates of Durer's birth and death, 1471 and 1528, the figures fit together
so well that the probabilities seem to point to Durer's personal contact with
the Nuremberg fraternity, and his knowledge of their teachings; and a closer
examination of his engraving 'Melancholy' will show very clearly that he is
enforcing the ethical doctrines of Freemasonry by conventional symbolic
formulas.
"Symbolism, that double form
of expression, having a naive and innocent form for the larger public and a
hidden meaning for the intelligent initiated, is well known to have been the
resource of the medieval freethinking teacher who was forced to pick his way
with the utmost care among the rocks of the Inquisition. Victor Hugo calls the
images on the portals of Notre Dame the 'freedom of the press' of that epoch.
It was natural that the architects, sculptors and painters of the Middle Ages,
in their criticisms and satires directed at social evils, should have shielded
themselves from the Church, which, moreover, employed symbolism in the
promulgation of her own mystic dogmas. Hence it is that Durer avails himself
of this stratagem in the promulgation of his humanistic ideas by his drawings,
which were sold at the fairs under the inquisitorial eye of the Church;
although the Church, in spite of her severe punishment of humanistic
activities, was unable to prevent the public appearance of the Reformation in
Nuremberg after the year 1524. "During Durer's stay in Italy as a student in
1505, which took him to Bologna, he undoubtedly made the acquaintance of the
academies there, as appears clearly from copper-plates like 'Great and Little
Fortune.' On the other hand, in view of his extensive knowledge of mathematics
and engineering he must have been associated with the Nuremberg Lodge, and was
probably even a member of it. That he publicly handled the ethical doctrines
of the latter, which through their agreement with teachings of the humanists
were already known to a large circle of the uninitiated, in the regular
symbolic language, indicates that the most severely kept secrets in the Lodge
were not these teachings, but some ritual which is known no longer.
"When we examine the picture
of 'Melancholy' in a purely objective fashion, we come to the conclusion, from
a view of the most elevated figure, that of the writing angel, that the theme
is some divine command which this being is communicating, a revelation or an
ethical teaching. The content of the latter is drastically brought out, as
always with Durer, by a sharp contrast, the contrast in this ease being the
lower material handicraft and the higher symbolic labor, so that in the
arrangement of figures the former is placed on a lower level, the latter on an
elevated platform. On this level appears the prominent figure of the whole
picture, a genius with mighty wings, much larger than the little angel, who in
accordance with the old symbolism is represented as a small winged child.
The leading figure is a woman
in rich festal attire, a garland on her loosened hair, her head supported
thoughtfully on her left arm. Her right arm rests on a book, probably the
Bible, and in her right hand she holds an open pair of ornamented compasses
with which she is drawing figures on the tablet on her knees suggested by the
form into which her skirt is drawn. Humanistically interpreted, this genius is
the personification of some virtue operating with the writing angel, and the
use of the compasses suggests the activity of the Masons. The explanation is
given added weight by the polygonal structure with the ladder and the great
building-stone leaning against it. But all this does not mean the completion
of the work; it has only symbolical significance. In this the three great
Platonic virtues, beauty, wisdom and strength, play a leading part as the
means to human perfection just as Raphael, for instance, treats them in the
Segaatura and are here evident as the content of the three main elements in
the picture. First the angel, who sits on a round stone hung with a rich
fringed cover, symbolizes wisdom because he is the means of divine revelation.
At his left the great winged genius, the prominent person in the picture is
Beauty. In her is symbolically represented the main interest of the
fraternity; she is their guide and adviser, who teaches them to handle the
compasses in the production of beautiful architectural figures. Finally, at
the right of Wisdom, Strength is represented, not in a personification, but by
an indication of the result, by a symbolizing of labor as the principal object
of the effective Masonic Lodge. This lesson is taught by the great, many-sided
building stone, with the shaping-hammer at its side, the conventional symbol
of labor. The logical conclusion of this ethical teaching is the landscape in
the background, with a sun breaking forth from rain-clouds and a diabolical
creature who has no place in the calm scene and who is hastening to leave it,
bearing a sign which labels him Melancholy.
"This sad attitude of soul,
which would today be called pessimism, is ascribed only to the fleeing,
banished devil, not to the genius of Beauty serious as this personage, in
common with Durer's characters in general, appears nor to the picture as a
whole, which is thus wrongly named. The general characterization of the
engraving as the ethical content of Freemasonry is borne out by the symbolic
additions. In the first place it is significant that exactly over the angel on
the outer wall of the polygonal structure the scales are hung, the well-known
symbol for the judgment of the world and divine justice. This arrangement
therefore characterizes the polygonal structure as a temple, the symbol for
the perfection of all humanity. Only two faces of the building are
represented, before whose broader front sits the genius of Beauty. Beauty,
according to the Platonic conception, is moderation and harmony of the soul;
in technical Masonry it is rhythm in architectural proportions.
This genius has a secret to
guard, as is indicated by the bunch of keys and the bag suspended from her
girdle. The subject of the secret is indicated again by the articles on the
temple wall, especially the hour glass, the symbol of our fast fleeting life
and the careful valuing of earthly and heavenly goods. On the dial above the
hour-glass the hand stands between the figures three and four, which can be
distinctly seen with a magnifying glass. These two numbers play an important
part in the figure that follows, which is a so-called magic square hung up
likewise on the temple wall, and reading 34 in every direction. If the reader
will make the trial with the numbers from 1 to 16 written in the sixteen
squares he will be astonished at the result. The same sum, 34, is obtained not
only in the horizontal and vertical rows, but also in the diagonals, in the
four smaller squares, in the middle square, etc. In the symbolism of numbers,
three is the number of completeness and four indicates the extension of space
in four directions, to the right, to the left, upward and downward.
Hence four is the symbol for
the world and the house, moreover, for the Masonic Lodge and the Masonic
fraternity. If these symbols are combined with the bell symbol above, the
meaning is this, and may be put into the mouth of the genies as follows: Here
sits the genius of Beauty, whose efforts are directed toward securing harmony
between God and the world, and in view of the transitory nature of life she
invites an active interest in the symbolic temple structure, which represents
a perfected world.
" All these explanations are
taken from well-known works on Christian symbolism and the symbols of the old
Christian catacombs. The seven-runged ladder also, which leads into the
temple, has its significance, as have the surfaces of the great building
stone. We must assume that Durer, the accurate draughtsman, has made a correct
picture; and in fact anyone who goes scientifically to work to procure the
projections of this stone will be surprised at the many conclusions to be
derived from a study of this traditional piece of apprentice work. one surface
is an equilateral triangle, another a regular pentagon, two are trapezoids and
two irregular pentagons. An architect acquainted with old buildings recognizes
the block as the keystone for the vaulted ceiling of a six-sided cloister
room, a chapel with a round aspe in which belongs the flat circular stone,
whose center where the altar stands is cut with a double opening, all with
symbolic significance. The keystone is to be so placed that the triangular
side comes underneath, with the point toward the altar and the base toward the
entrance. It is easy to reconstruct such a building, and the result opens up a
wonderful perspective into some as yet unknown connection between the Masons
and the Templars, the Order which was destroyed in 1313 and whose prototype
for all their chapel structures is just the plan we have described. One more
symbol is to be mentioned, the melting-pot which stands beside the stone,
burning vigorously and ready to fuse the lead. This symbol is unknown
elsewhere, but can reasonably be assumed to indicate the Brotherhood fused
together in love, as the clamps and braces are leaded and secured by the help
of the flame. "We have already spoken of the landscape in the background, but
we must add that there is no evidence of a comet, as some commentators insist;
it is the sun breaking through rain-clouds and sending out somewhat
exaggerated beams. If it were not the sun the rainbow could not be where it
is, seen by the spectator with his back to the sun, so that he looks out of
the picture. According to the old Christian symbolism the rainbow is a sign of
peace and the covenant between God and men. When this alliance with the Most
High is perfected, the bat like, nocturnal devil's imp, Melancholy, flees from
the temple and the scene. On the label there appears after the word which has
led to so mistaken a conclusion, a figure 1 or an i. The scholars who insist
on a series of four pictures dealing with moods of the soul, considered this
drawing the first because they read a 1; but if it is the letter i, it
indicates an abbreviated Latin word, appropriate to the general tone of the
picture, for example iacet. Then it reads 'Melancholia iacet', Melancholy
falls in defeat or flees, which indicates the thought of the picture as a
whole. Now if the old interpretation of the engraving, which makes the great
winged genius the personification of Melancholy, is abandoned, and the new one
accepted, the meaning of the articles scattered about on the ground is clear.
They are the carelessly dropped, as it were discarded, tools of the trade at
the feet of the winged genius, just as in Raphael's celebrated picture, Saint
Cecilia, discards the musical instruments which seem to her inadequate.
"In contrast to the higher
symbolic spiritual instruments, these tools, pliers, beveling tool, plumb
line, plane, iron band, saw and nails, represent incompleteness. But among
them we see the sleeping dog, the ball, and an article which is not absolutely
clear, but which is perhaps a vessel for incense. The dog, who lies very
significantly under the round altarstone, represents in Christian symbolism,
on account of his watchfulness and fidelity, the priestly order, as is
indicated by the phrase Domini canes. When this order disregards its duty and,
like the dog here, falls asleep, it belongs among the discarded tools and
gives the laity who constitute the Masonic fraternity the right to open
communication with the Most High without clerical mediation. As a pendant to
this, could not the article lying near, an unused incense vessel, the symbol
for the prayers which are pleasing to God, indicate that this vessel,
belonging to the priesthood, is also discarded and that in its place we have
the loving alliance of those who seek perfection through their own efforts,
symbolized by the melting pot? The ball, elsewhere a mathematical sign of
completeness, here standing for the earth, is probably also a symbol of
earthly imperfection, in view of which the flight into purer regions of the
spirit seems all the more necessary.
" Many scholars undervalue
Durer's inventive independence. Thus we read in Dohne's Runst und Kunst 'There
is no reason for imputing profound thoughts to him; Durer was no nineteenth
century philosophical thinker, but his was a genuine artist nature, and in
works like "Melancholy," "Nemesis," and others, we may be sure that he was
working under the orders of learned patrons.' Who of the Nuremberg humanists
Pirkheimer perhaps, or the townclerk Lazarus Spengler—could have coupled with
his philosophical training so intimate a knowledge of the practical demands of
stone-masonry? It is just here we have an evidence of Durer's peculiar nature,
which this ethically symbolic material, appealing to his mystic bent, fitted
exactly. Hence this profound artist-philosopher, who sought to train his
contemporaries in wisdom and beauty to strength, becomes for us a still far
from exhausted source of the highest pleasure and the noblest teaching."
*
DUTCH GUIANA
See Surinam
*
DUTY
The duty of a Freemason as an
honest man is plain and easy. It requires of him honesty in contracts,
sincerity in affirming, simplicity in bargaining, and faithfulness in
performing. To sleep little, and to study much; to say little, and to hear and
think much; to learn, that he may be able to do; and then to do earnestly and
vigorously whatever the good of his fellows, his country, and mankind
requires, are the duties of every Freemason.
Northern Freemason is quoted
in Palmer Templegram. September, 1926, to the following effect: The very first
duty that an Entered Apprentice acknowledges is to improve himself in Masonry.
How many truly and sincerely attempt to discharge that duty? What would be the
success of a lawyer who ever again looked into a law book after his admission
D the bar- a minister of the Gospel, who never read the Bible after his
ordination; a doctor who never took up medical work after securing his
sheepskin; or that f any other profession, who does not take up post graduate
studies?
And yet you find Freemasons
pretending to be Masonic lights, who never read a Grand Lodge Proceedings a
report on Foreign Correspondence, or a Masonic periodical Some of them,
perhaps, can glibly repeat certain portions of the ritual, but could not give
an intelligent interpretation of the same to save their lives.
Masonic reading is an
essential part of the education of a Freemason, and it is never too late to
begin, but it is always better to begin early. It is the duty of the
Worshipful ;Master to impress this fact upon newly-made Masons, but if they
themselves are in the class of nonreaders. how can we expect from them such
wholesome advice?
*
DYAUS
Sanskrit for sky; Might;
exalted. Therefore the word becomes significant of the Deity, the sun, the
celestial canopy, the firmament.
*
DYE NA SORE
or Die Wanderer aus dem
Sanskrit Ubersetzt. A Masonic romance, by Von Meyern, which appeared at Vienna
in 1789, and contains a complete account of Masonic festivities.
*
